


4/28/12

by GhostHost



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Abuse, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Con culture, Hurt/Comfort, Praise Kink, Ratchet adopts the stunticons, Seeker culture, Starscream is competent when other people give him a chance to be, action dad Starscream, and Starscream
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24104443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostHost/pseuds/GhostHost
Summary: Starscream did not plan to raise not-quite-sparklings during the war. He definitely didn't plan on raising any during what might as well be an apocalypse scenario for his species as a whole, and he absolutely did not plan on any attempts of co-parenting with the Autobots stupid medic during said apocalypse.And yet, all three things were happening, set to the tune of Shockwave's backfired virus trying its best to kill them all.Starscream has priorities. Those priorities are to keep the few remaining Decepticons alive, eradicate the virus, establish a peace treaty with the Autobots before they declare themselves winners of the war and try to keep himself from falling in love (also with the Autobots stupid medic.)Pity his priorities (and the Stunticons) were working against him.
Relationships: Jazz/Soundwave, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Ratchet/Starscream (Transformers)
Comments: 78
Kudos: 184





	1. Get Out

**Author's Note:**

> You’d think this was brought on by current events but nope, bff and I just went on a zombie kick, and then this AU decided to possess me at 3 am. 
> 
> This is a romantic thriller. I personally do not consider this as dark as other things I have written, but it does have horror elements. ( I also read a very large amount of thriller and horror and hate it when everyone fucking survives the haunted house books in EXTREMELY improbably ways what the *fuck* Darcey Coates!!!--and am comfortable in those genres, ymmv.)
> 
> Ratchet does not show up until the next chapter, this chapter is all about action dad Starscream. 
> 
> WARNINGS: This fic features a fast acting (zombie-like) virus as a central plot point, so if that is a current trigger for you, you’d best skip this one. It’s Last of Us/Left For Dead /28 Days Later/Dead Rising inspired so it's very similar to that. I did not use the word pandemic, however I am liberal with the word infected.
> 
> It also contains major character death (mentioned not shown, with the exception of Astrotrain. Most of the Cons on Earth get wiped out including Motormaster because I just plain don't like him lol) kidnapping, memory wipes, compliance coding, mental issues/disorders, child abuse, general abuse, and Ratchet once again adopting the Stunticons (Minus Motormaster) alongside “He keeps saying he’s not our dad but he’s definitely our dad” Starscream.

_ Resolute, a stance of defiance _

_ Always teetering on the brink _

_ Nothing can hold you back when _

_ When you're not holding back a thing _

_ Honor--Atreyu _

* * *

Starscream had a hit list. 

At one point and time it had been three separate lists, each one painstaking ranking Autobots, Decepticons, and Cybertronians in general (and the painful, painful demise each deserved) but these days there was only one list. 

It was easier to keep track of that way.

Shockwave had always been on it--the asshole liked body modification and non-consenting surgeries a little too much for Starscream’s comfort-- but he'd never been anything more than a mid-level annoyance. He was only as high up it as he was due to his potential to be a massive pain in the aft. 

Mostly,  Shockwave kept to Cybertron, happy to control it in favor of getting to do “his work” and stayed well out of Starscream’s way. 

This arrangement suited both mechs and everyone was fairly happy for it, 

That is, until the fragger apparently got wind of the Autobot's lovely new MTO invention, and decided the Decepticon's had to have their own, made to order combiner. 

What he’d delivered hadn’t been sparklings. 

But they hadn’t really been MTO’s either, and in the aftermath, Starscream found himself and his trine in the awkward position of being the only mechs socially, mentally and generally capable of trying to tame a completely wild, extremely young, combiner team. 

Even Soundwave had backed off after a short while, and if that said anything about the momentous task at hand, it was that Shockwave was a nasty, moralless fragger who had managed to jump himself several slots up Starscream’s list. 

Thing is, even when they discovered Breakdown was glitched, or that Shockwave had used compliance coding, or that the entire gestalt was held together through some kind of forced bond and metaphorical duct tape, Shockwave had only ever ranked as high on the list as the number six spot. 

It wasn’t until two years after the Stunticon’s creation that he managed to climb his way up to number one, topping even Megatron in Starscream’s desire for complete and total decimation.

Death in any way the seeker could get it, up to but not limited by, Autobot's, natural disasters, and the seekers own damn hand. 

Unfortunately for Starscream’s hit list, Shockwave managed to take himself out with one of his own inventions.

He took Megatron and the vast majority of the Decepticon’s elite force with him, which the SIC would have honestly counted as a bonus if it weren’t for the fact that he’d done it by reinventing, then fragging _ releasing _ , the most deadly virus Cybertronians had ever encountered. Now i t was a race now to see who else would die--by infection, or death caused by the infected. 

Dead or alive, Shockwave would hold that number one spot for the rest of Starscream’s life.

xXx

Alarms wailed, red warning lights bathing the _Nemesis_ in such a way that one could have almost confused it for an Autobot base. Water poured in from a number of holes; caused by gunshots, gouges, and mad, rabid Cybertronians carelessly fighting against each other. 

The ship was a war-faring class, meant to survive interior combat in space. While it could survive underwater (as it had been doing, since Megatron had delightfully decided to relocate it there) it was not meant to be flooded like it currently was. 

Nor was it meant to take any kind of extreme damage, such as Megatron’s cannon, which was currently firing wildly while the asshole bellowed, audible even from a floor below. 

“Grab Deadend!” Stascream yelled at Skywarp, as he himself dodged past the youngling. Water was up to their knees already. He’d have hovered if it had just been a bad leak, but seeing as how the vast majority of the command meeting he’d just left had been reduced to rabid, revving engines and white-opticked mechs, he wasn’t going to chance putting a pede in easy grabbing range. 

A  _ ‘wap!’  _ behind him told him he’d been obeyed. 

One task accomplished, Starscream dedicated a portion of his processor to creating a priority tree. The Stunticons were listed instantly, then above them, securing a way out of the _Nemesis_. 

The small, inner-planetary space bridge they’d built was out--it was too close to high command's meeting room. That entire floor was contaminated and Starscream had no intention of going back on it. 

That left the lift, or one of the escape pods. 

An explosion knocked him off his pedes and into the wall, freezing seawater sloshing all the way to the base of his wings. A second explosion followed, rocking the floor and causing smoke to spill down the corridor to his left. Yet another alarm blared, this one indicating a fire. The N _emesis's_ AI sent out a map with the affected area highlighted in red, then spitting out warnings as several barrier doors were triggered to contain the flames. 

Which meant the escape pods were out. 

Starscream recovered, reshuffling his priorities as he turned down the opposite corridor. He’d hijacked the open comm-line to send a warning on a loop--a risk, as anyone else would need to use a different frequency or switch over to their personals to talk if they weren’t within shouting range--but he’d included instructions to message him directly. (And to also keep the frag off the top floor, but one would think that was obvious considering the words preceding it were "Freon-C" "outbreak" and "several infected." ) 

A buzz sounded, indicating someone had _finally_ been smart enough to do just that. 

::What the  _ fuck _ is going on!?:: Dragstrip spat, his anger covering clear indicators of fear. 

::Dragstrip report your position!:: Starscream commanded, putting as much authority into his voice as he could muster. He could only pray the brat responded, as he quickly calculated the best way to mount a defense for the lift. A defense that would absolutely be needed, if the banging above him was any indication. 

::Storage room 6! I was on provisions duty when--!:: 

Starscream cut the comm, instead forwarding Dragstrip’s position to Skywarp. He didn't bother telling him what to do with it. 

His played stupid, but was far from it. 

::On it!:: Skywarp replied on the trine channel. 

Trusting him to retrieve the brat and take him to the surface (where Thundercracker and now Deadend, waited safely.) Starscream continued on. 

The command room sat atop the _Nemesis,_ closest to the throne and security rooms. Officer habsuits were up there as well, with most of their inhabits having had attended the meeting--and if they weren’t already dead, they’d likely be soon. The level below it contained the higher ranking officers habsuits, alongside the med-bay, a break-room, the first set of small storage spaces and the first group of escape pods. Only two of said pods had managed to make it this far unscathed, and both of them had just gone down. That made his next destination several floors below him, where the first door to the lift would open. 

The water was receding as he came down the final hall to the stairwell, but was high enough to cause him problems trying to access the stairs. A red alarm blared above it, the door having locked itself down as the _Nemesis's_ AI tried to combat the flooding at the same time as it dealt with the fire. 

If Starscream didn't hurry, he'd be barricaded in when the stupid thing finally realized it needed to quarantine the entire top two levels instead of just locking "unsafe" exits while calling for help. 

Rather than fight against water pressure or the AI, Starscream raised his null rays and blasted his way through. 

The alarm cut off with a shriek as he leapt through the hole, then moved rapidly to descended down three more floors. Sea water followed him, but seeing as it was already cascading down the center of the stairwell in an ever-growing waterfall he doubted it made the situation any worse. 

Said waterfall made it impossible to just fly through the middle, forcing Starscream to grit his denta and take the stairs like a grounder, something he knew lost him time. 

Something thudded from above. A metal screech and blaster fire, followed by snarls and shrieks that echoed down the stairs. 

The virus had escaped the top floor. 

He didn’t pause his descent, not even when something big fell down the stairwell, inside the water. It landed hard seconds later, the sound muffled and wet sounding. Two more objects quickly fell and it wasn’t until a hand bounced off the railing that Starscream realized they were bodies.

Worse, the seeker realized, as a slow, groaning thrum built from below--they were  _ infected  _ bodies. 

Time was running out. 

A door behind him crashed open. “Starscream!” Dirge yelled, optics wide and wings thrust high in alarm. 

Starscream didn’t stop. The first door to the lift was still two levels below him, and he was determined to make it there before whoever had fallen to the first floor managed to start climbing back up.

The Coneheads were the second best trine in the entire Decepticon Air Fleet. Dirge was their leader. 

If he was worth that position, then he’d follow while yelling his questions. 

_ “Starscream! _ ” Dirge repeated, doing just that and taking off after his commander, pedes sliding on the slick stairs. 

Someone above screamed, a long wail that abruptly cut off into a startled choke. 

“Comm your team, we need to get to the lift!” Starscream ordered, as he slid around the final turn, shooting the door his access code. 

Dirge followed without looking up. Seconds later, he proved his worth a second time by punching one of the emergency panels on the wall as they ran past, manually triggering a blast door to descend, sealing the fourth floor off from the stairwell. 

It wouldn’t do a lot against infected mechs, but it would buy them the time they need. 

They ran without talking. Water ran down the walls in streaks, the water haven’t quite gotten this far but finding its way quickly. 

With the alarm lights the way they were, it looked like human blood. 

The seekers ignored it, couldn't afford to comment on it. 

On top of everything else he was doing, all the other thoughts running wild in his helm, Starscream had taken to spamming the remaining three Stunticons with messages. 

They weren’t answering, making his priority tree very unhappy. It kept wanting to jump their rescue above securing the lift based purely on the emotional response it read off Starscream, something that pissed him off both because he was having emotions regarding the Stunticons and because it was fragging distracting and the damn plans for their escape weren't finished yet. 

Except that, unlike every other mech on this ship, they wouldn’t understand what Freon-C was. Precautions would escape them, and Starscream knew if he or his trine didn’t reach them, they would absolutely engage with the infected. 

The thought pushed him faster, made him use his thrusters to boost his steps, rust infection risk be damned. 

Skywarp hadn’t checked in yet, but Starscream wasn’t worried--he felt fine over the trine bond and there was a high chance he’d asked Deadend or Dragstrip where their siblings were and went to fetch one of them. 

Thinking anything less wouldn’t leave him capable to do what he needed to. 

Mentally he reviewed all he could about the lift. A plan was forming, half-baked and full of holes, but it was something to work on as he ran through the twisting hallways of the _Nemesis._

“Thrust is coming up on your left.” Dirge informed him, just in time for the maroon Conehead to appear. 

Starscream didn’t have time to thank him for the warning, instead continuing his sprint to the lift door. The lift was opposite the northern stairwell, which meant they had to run the entire length of the ship to get from one end to the other. 

There was also the southern stairwell and the central stairwell, both of which were unsecured and no doubt also leaking water. 

But that was a problem Starscream decided to cross later. 

“Ram’s not answering his comms!” Thrust bit out, as he fell into stride with his Commander and trine leader. 

Dirge cursed, but stayed on course. 

A  _ ‘wap!’ _ sounded, making it Starscream’s turn to curse as Skywarp nearly took all three of them to the floor. Another _ ‘wap!’ _ and the entire world jerked, twisting into teleportation, then just as easily out of it, dumping them all onto the lift’s floor.

“What have I told you about taking multiple people!” Starscream shrieked, as the four of them began the process of untangling themselves.

Skywarp panted, systems strained, the only one not bothering to get back up. “Sorry not sorry!” He chanted, then took a giant vent and warped away. Over the trine comm he added; ::Infected in the middle of the fourth floor, had to get you all out of the way!::

Starscream cursed again, his fist flying out to punch a wall, hard. 

“We can’t leave yet, we don’t have Ram!” Thrust said worriedly but Dirge and Starscream both shook their heads. 

As Air Commander, Starscream shouldered a numerous number of weights. He had been accused of being cowardly, and in his darkest moments, he would admit he was. 

Anyone who begged Megatron for their life instead of accepting their death with dignity, was. 

That didn’t mean he hadn’t earned his position, or that he held it just because he looked pretty. His recent, personal attack plans and opposition against Megatron aside, when it came to the safety of those under his command, Dirge’s faith in him was absolute. Starscream would do what he could to save his mechs. He would not sacrifice them without informing them, and if it came to that, any such sacrifice would mean something. 

If Ramjet could be saved, Starscream would get him. 

“Prepare to defend the lift.” Starscream ordered, stepping up to the panel. He punched the button to open the doors at the same time as the Coneheads drew their blasters. His own was drawn shortly after, the door rising in a slow, creaky crawl. 

No one met them in the corridor. 

“Clear!” Dirge announced, sweeping left, Thrust echoing him while sweeping to the right. 

Starscream didn’t bother to state his own clear, there was nothing straight ahead.

Not yet, anyway. 

::Infected on the first floor!:: Skywarp reported over comms open to all the seekers, frantic voice interrupting the next orders Starscream had intended to give. ::Star, Motormaster is engaging--he’s not _ listening _ to me!” 

::Motormaster, stand down!:: Starscream ordered instantly, shooting a comm to the truck. He knew it was useless the second he’d done it--Motormaster had been the only Stunticon Shockwave had considered a “success.” 

The mech was brutal, violent, and inflicted more damage on his team than he did on anyone else. No amount of training, threats or force had managed to get that out of him, and more than once Starscream’s trine been forced to step in when his “discipline” had gone too far. 

He was Starscream’s least favorite--but that didn’t mean he should die.

“Dirge, chances that Ramjet is on the first floor?” He asked, in a voice that was not to be refused. 

“Fifty-five percent, he was supervising punishment detail. He should be with Wildrider and Soundwave’s twins.” 

Which meant they would have been cleaning either the first or second floors. 

::Skywarp, teleport me down there.:: Starscream ordered over comms. Aloud, he said; “Step back into the lift and keep it closed. Open it only if someone out here can string full sentences together. I’ll stay in communication with you.” 

“Yes, Sir.” Dirge and Thrust chanted at the same time, as though they were all a real army and not the chaotic mess they’d become these last few centuries. They moved back in unison, Thrust punching the button to bring the door back down. 

For a moment, a single brief moment, Starscream felt proud. 

Then something slammed down onto the top of the lift, hard enough to break the mechanisms holding it in place and sent it plummeting down. 

xXx

The doors were stuck. 

Thrust was injured.

And someone  _ large _ was on top of the lift, infected and doing their damndest to break the ceiling. 

Knowing his luck, Starscream bet it was Megatron. 

He let Dirge tend to his trinemate, raising his blaster and waiting for the next slam. When it came he fired two rounds, muffled howling letting him know at least one of them had hit. 

Surprise shot down the bond, and for a moment Starscream was terrified the infected had hit the lift when Skywarp had been mid-teleport, but thankfully the mech appeared a moment later, unharmed beyond his overtaxed systems. 

“Motormaster’s gone.” He said solemnly, then cringed as part of the ceiling bent violently inwards. 

Starscream didn’t have time to process that. The lift was dinging wildly, the screen fritzing out and refusing to tell them what floor they were on. He fired another barrage of rounds, audios protesting with harsh, static feedback. 

“‘Warp, can you get us to the second floor?  _ One at a time! _ ” He added, hating how much he was relying on the darker seeker. Even short jumps around the _Nemesis_ would burn through fuel, and they had been rationing well before this. 

Thundercracker and Starscream both gave parts of their energon to Skywarp for this exact purpose, but right now it wasn’t enough. An entire cubeful of med-grade energon wouldn’t be enough. 

“You got it. Dirge?” Skywarp asked, cocking out his elbow for the blue seeker to hold onto as though he were a gentlemech at a ball instead of a solider in yet another fragged up situation. 

The mech cut a look across to Starscream, who nodded. Unspoken between them was that Thrust would go second, so that Dirge would be there to protect him should something happen in the hallway. 

Despite everything, the teleports were quick. Thrust was grabbed while Starscream fired his third round, and by the time he was sighting for his fourth Skywarp had come for him. 

Considering the noise that came from the lift afterwords, that speed had just saved the SIC’s life. 

The hallway they came into was deserted. No water, no damage. 

No infected.

Alarms still blared, and the warning lights still flickered in an endless strobe of red, making the entire thing look like something out of a human horror film.

Belatedly, Sarscream realized this entire situation was _exactly_ like that in a human horror film. 

Particularly now that every way out was currently compromised. 

“Won't all this noise draw the infected to us?” Thrust asked, finally standing. His right leg had been injured in the fall, twisted out from under him in a way that had to hurt. Dirge had managed to pop it back into the correct place but Starscream knew the maroon seeker wouldn’t be running anytime soon. "Maybe we should use that somehow. Get them all in one place." It was said with false, paper-thin bravado, something the jet was known for but also a sign that he was struggling to sound better off than he really was. 

Starscream vaguely worried about Thrust’s ability to fly, but if all else failed, Skywarp could make a final trip out with him while he and Dirge flew. 

"We can come up with a better plan." Dirge said, but he cut a look at Starscream. The SIC interpreted it correctly, which was that despite Dirge's constant need to be in control, he preferred Starscream to be the one to take command in situations like this one. If no one came up with a plan, Dirge would panic and try to stick in his own, and they all knew nothing he could come up with on the fly would compare to Starscream's.

Better to simply keep acting like this were under control, even when they weren't.

"The plan is to find the remaining Stunticons and any other survivors. Once we leave we will need to guarantee no one else can escape." Starscream said firmly. He purposefully skipped over _how_ they were planning to escape. He'd tell them what it was when he came up with it. 

::Star, 'Warp, Dragstrip’s insisting Wildrider and Breakdown are alive.:: Thundercracker commed over the trine-line, his voice strained. 

::Can they tell us where either of them are?:: Warp answered, moving to guard Thrust’s left side. Dirge took right while Starscream took point, leaving the injured seeker in the center. 

::Status on their condition?:: Starscream asked, beginning his process of sweeping the floor for survivors, their entire group moving slowly forward. Gestalt teams were notorious for one death causing a cascade of others, often taking the entire team down with them. It was the one major downside to a combiner, and why the Stunticons were rarely allowed in battles outside of their combined form. (Well that, and their combat training was...poor.) 

Still, Shockwave had insisted he had managed to bypass that particular issue, but Starscream knew the scientist hadn't tested it. 

As with half the jackaft's more interesting inventions, they wouldn't know until it succeeded or blew up in their faces. Only in this case, failure meant the death of the younger mechs.

::Bad but functional.:: Thundercracker answered. Then, after a pause long enough to make Starscream want to snarl, he added; ::I think they'll make it. Wildrider is on the second floor.:: Another, longer pause, then ::Breakdown’s locked himself in their rooms.:: 

::Acknowledged.:: Starscream said. At least they knew for sure Wildrider was on this floor. ::TC can you raise Rider on comms?:: 

::No. I’ll try Breakdown.:: 

They all knew Breakdown wouldn’t answer, but it was something TC could do. The command trine’s third was doing a good job of keeping his emotions in check and out of the bond, but the longer they stayed down here, the more he’d worry.

That was one more thing Starscream didn’t want to handle, right just then. 

They were moving carefully, trapped and well aware of it. Starscream went to work on yet another plan, helm beginning to ache. An error code popped up in on his HUD and he shunted it aside. 

There simply had to be another way out that didn’t involve Skywarp teleporting them all.  One by one or all at once, he knew that the darker seeker didn’t have the energy left to get everyone to the surface. 

Right at this second, he didn’t even have enough energy left to teleport to get Breakdown. He would’ve attempted it anyway, if Starscream had asked it of him, but it was better to wait. Let Skywarp recover, and potentially have enough energy to get at least some of them to the surface, instead of wasting it all. 

The alarms were loud enough to drown out almost every approach, and yet all of them heard it when a high performance engine kicked into overdrive. Tires squealed, the sound coming closer, and Starscream halted his crew just as Wildrider burst around the corner. 

“Stop!” Starscream yelled, then fired at the kid’s tires when he disobeyed. 

A spectacular spin out was the result, the back ends of the Ferrari inches from Starscream’s frame. The seeker backed up, Dirge and Skywarp yanking Thrust back and well behind the three of them. 

_ “Ow!”  _ Wildrider yelped, making the jump to his root form. For once the transformation wasn't chaotic or flashy, there were no kicks or wild turns (that more often than not, landed him on his back.) “Has everybody gone crazy!? What the hell’s Freon-C? why did you shoot me!?” The rapid fire questions held a note of pain--no doubt the kid was in shock. “A-and Motormaster, he’s--” 

“Don’t come closer.” Starscream warned, interrupting the young mechs rant. His gun came up warningly, causing Wildrider’s hands to jump up, palms flat. 

“Screamer?” He whined, optics wide, field thick with the pain of loss, and the desire to be comforted. A normal gestalt wouldn’t have survived the death of their head, but the Stunticons had never been normal. Chances were, they would live. 

So long as they didn’t get infected. 

“Stay where you are. Were you attacked?” Starscream demanded, keeping his gun trained and his finger on the trigger. 

It’d kill him to have to shoot the youngling. 

It might kill everyone else if he failed to shoot an infected, even if it was a newspark.

Even one of the newsparks  _ he'd practically raised _ \--and he shunted that train of thought aside before it could start. Thinking like that was how you got yourself killed. 

Starscream couldn’t afford to die today. He had to insure the damn virus didn’t wipe out their entire race first. 

Wildrider was already answering, mouth moving a mile a minute. “Yeah but by fuckin’ Bonecrusher! Ramjet was holding him off and told me to run and stupid Frenzy kept getting us lost, and Skywarp commed me to go to the lift and I told those jackasses I knew how to get to the lift better than  _ they  _ did and-!” 

_ “Wildrider.” _ Starscream barked. “Did Bonecrusher injure you?” 

“No.” He said, flinching back, startled at Starscream's intense tone. “But he fragging  _ bit _ Ramjet!” 

The youngling wasn’t clear of the virus. Starscream knew better than to turn his back to him, but he took his chances and did it anyway. 

Had to, so he could see the remaining Coneheads. 

“Cut your bond to him.” He ordered, trying to ignore the sheer panic he saw reflected in Dirge and Thrust’s face. 

“No.” The maroon jet responded, sinking slowly to his knees. “No, no,  _ no, no-!” _

“Dirge,” He warned, turning to the Conehead’s but the blue jet just shook his head. 

“He closed down the bond while we were in the lift.” Dirge replied, voice full of static. “He must’ve--” He paused, engine hissing in a low whine. “He didn’t say goodbye.” The mech's field spiraled out of control--terror and _loss_ at its core. 

Starscream spark pulsed hard in hurt. His vents hissed, and he instinctively took a step forward and touched his forehead to Dirge’s and gripping the back of his head. 

“He lived for you.” He told him fiercely. “Make that count.” He held Dirge there a moment longer before letting go, stepping back. The blue jet gave a jerky nod, vents uneven, fighting his field for control. Below them, Thrust raked his claws down the floor, head ducked into his chest. 

“Where did Soundwave’s brats go?” Starscream said, turning back to face Wildrider as Dirge collected himself, and then his remaining trinemate. Skywarp stepped in to help, bending down and crooning softly in Thrust’s audio. 

The whole scene only panicked Wildrider harder, confusion and terror etched across his face. “We fought, they left--I dunno!” He said, throwing his hands into a shrug. He desperately needed the comfort Starscream had just offered Dirge, but the seeker withheld himself.

_ ‘Not yet. _ ’ He thought firmly, keeping his eyes on the mechling.  _ ‘Not until you know for sure he’s safe. _ ’ It hurt them both, but plenty of comfort would be given once they made it out of this. “Calm yourself.” He ordered instead, needing Wildrider to at least keep his head. Or as much of it as the high strung racer was capable of normally, anyway. 

Wildrider’s mouth popped open to respond, but the _Nemesis_ suddenly shook, the floor rolling beneath them, a nd with it a distance howl of an engine that just didn't quite sound right. 

“Star.” Skywarp said, voice lowering into a whisper once it stopped. “We need to get off this floor.” 

They needed to get off the entire damn ship, but they still had one Stunticon to collect.

Closing his optics, Starscream hissed out a frustrated sigh.

His next plan had even more holes in it than the prior one had--if you could even call it a plan.

“Second floor has access to the main air vent.” He said, thinking out loud. “We’re all small enough to fit in it.”

“Okay. What do we do when we hit the top floor?” Skywarp asked quietly, playing the part of sounding board. For once, it didn’t bother his trinemate that he did it unbidden. 

“We’re not going to the top floor. We’re going to go to the third floor and then you’re all going to hide in it while I locate Breakdown.” He responded, deep in thought. 

He got yet another error message on his HUD. He shunted it aside just as he had the first. 

“He’s in our rooms.” Wildrider said instantly. “He’s practically glitched out though.” 

Of course he was. 

“I’ll get him.” Skywarp said. 

Starscream didn’t shout no, but then he didn’t need to, the pulse of “absolutely not” that shot down the bond from himself to the darker seeker did it for him.

“You are running on your reserves.” He said aloud, knowing it to be true. “We need to conserve what energy you have left to get to the surface.” 

::I mean it, Warp.:: He added, in a personal comm. ::Teleporting too much will destroy you. I’m not risking that.:: 

Skywarp glared, looking like he might argue, but spat out “Fine.” instead. “So you’re just going to get him then?” He challenged instead. 

“Yes. Unless anyone else has a better idea?” Starscream hissed, knowing they did not. A pause, just so everyone knew _he_ knew they didn’t, and then added a snarled; “That’s what I thought.” 

Twelve minutes later, and they were going up the vents, Wildrider wedged between them all after having been cleared as safe and told in no uncertain circumstances to shut the frag up. (It might have been accompanied by what Starscream would never refer to as a hug, but could be confused as one from pretty much every angle one witnessed it from.) He had to jump (or be carried, when there wasn’t a horizontal cross vent close enough.) but the rest were able to fly, making the journey go quick. 

During the climb, Starscream tried comming Frenzy and Rumble. He hadn’t expected much, and wasn’t surprised when he got dead air. More than likely their mental state was a mess, far worse than anyone elses on board. 

Starscream couldn’t possibly see how Soundwave would have survived--he’d been sitting to Megatron’s right, and their oh so beloved leader had been the second person to get bit from Shockwave’s “project.” 

Perhaps his telepathy granted him abilities to protect himself. 

Guess they’d find out later. 

“Third floor.” Wildrider grunted when they arrived, pointing out what everyone already knew. No one bothered to call him on that, they were all too emotionally fried and on edge to care.

The constant, shrieking alarms weren’t doing anyone any favors either. 

Starscream got the Stunticon and the Coneheads into the cross-vent when the third explosion went off, knocking him and Skywarp around like two pinballs. A crunching, wailing noise rose all around them, the ship bucking like some kind of wild creature. 

It lasted seconds, but it felt like years.

Processor spinning, altitude indicator shrieking, Starscream sunk his claws into the side of the vent, tearing ragged strips until he got them deep enough to hold him steady. Panic lanced his still open bond, though he couldn’t tell who it came from. It caused him to look around wildly until he realized Skywarp had done the exact same thing right below him, and that both of them were okay. 

The alarms went wild, mixed with shouts until the ship finally settled, taking the alarms with it. 

The sudden abrupt silence after so much noise set Starscream on edge more than anything else had. 

::Star! Warp!: Thundercracker yelled over comms, voice thick with static, followed by a pulse of fear. 

::We’re ok.:: Skywarp replied instantly, sending a soothing pulse back to TC. He had his head turned up to look at Starscream, examining him to convince himself that they were in fact, both alright. 

Starscream let him. He also didn't answer TC, leaving him to Skywarp and their bond as he  pulled himself up along the wall with claws alone until he was far enough away from Skywarp’s head to point his thrusters away and use them to jump where the others lay. 

“Report.” He barked, upon landing in the vent.

“All okay.” Dirge replied. The three of them looked banged up, but the tri-colored seeker knew for sure he looked worse. 

Primus, he couldn’t wait to get off this ship!

“What the hell was that?!” Wildrider yelped, hugging the floor of the vent and looking entirely out of his element. Starscream didn’t answer him, just nudged him forward so Skywarp could come into the vent behind him. Dirge, apparently sensing Starscream wasn’t going to bother to deal with the kid that instant and that Skywarp was entirely too tired, leaned down and whispered into the Ferrari’s audio, unheard words apparently soothing the mech so that his field wasn’t quite so jagged. 

Or maybe he threatened him. Whichever it was, Starscream didn't particularly care at this moment. 

In the back of his head, Starscream reminded himself to praise the brat later. Of the Stunticons, Wildrider ranked second to last in terms of a youngling he’d want to get stuck in a bad situation with, and yet he was doing well thus far to prove him wrong.  That deserved acknowledgement, both because it meant his tine’s secret, under-the-table lessons were holding, and because it meant Wildrider himself was growing up. 

Not a lot, but enough. 

An open slate in the vent cut red lights across the interior of the metal cylinder, and Starcream moved toward it. The cooling and heating systems grew smaller and smaller from here, which meant the vent before him was going to be his easiest way of getting onto the third floor. 

Pity Breakdown still wasn’t responding, because he’d have loved to have someone be able to give him an all clear.

Facts was he didn’t, which meant he’d jump down first, have Dirge hang an arm out and cover him with a blaster, and everyone else would stay inside and wait until the final Stunticon had been pried out of whatever nest he’d buried himself in. 

It took a moment to relay those exact words, along with a pointed reminder to Wildrider that as Breakdown’s sibling, now would be an excellent time to work on calming him down through their gestalt bond. 

Again, this wasn’t the youngling Starscream would have preferred for the task, Deadend was much better at it, but it was what it was. 

They would make do, or they would die. 

“Make yourselves useful and try and come up with a plan to get us off the Nemesis while I’m gone.” He ordered, then kicked the vent cover clear and dropped down into the hall. 

He didn’t tell them to stay alive. He didn’t need to. 

They knew what their orders were. 

xXx

The hallways were empty. 

The Stunticon’s quarters weren’t far from here. The crew’s usual habsuits were much higher, spread out between the sixth and eighth floors, but the Stunticons had been an addition made many years later and as such were shoved into whatever space was left. This put them as far away from everyone else as possible.

Today, that was a good thing. 

Using the SIC master codes, Starscream was able to override the first door. The storage-rooms-turned-habsuit had one large living area that connected to several smaller habsuits, two of them literal closets. The living area was trashed, shoddily built furniture tossed around the room with garbage littering the floor. 

This was normal, and not cause for concern. 

Breakdown’s room was one of the closets, but opening that door proved the Countach wasn’t in it. 

Starscream retreated, standing in the middle of the main room. “Breakdown.” He said, trying to sound like it wasn’t the frustrated order he wanted it to be, “This is Starscream. Come out _.”_

Nothing. 

Claws extending and retracting in building fury that wouldn't help either of them, Starscream purposefully took a vent, ignored his chronometer and all the other worries pressing down on him, stressing him to _get out now,_ and started his sweep. 

If he had too, he would knock Breakdown out and carry him to safety, but that required finding the youngling first, and to do that, he had to keep his temper in check. 

Starscream systematically cleared the next two rooms, his sensors not hitting upon anything. That he could't hear or feel Breakdown's engine was a concern-usually when the brat had a meltdown his control of his engine went right out the door. A creeping worrying that Breakdown had been infected grew in him, giving explanations for why it was so silent, why Breakdown wasn't talking to himself or rattling the room with his outlier ability. 

Logic said that infection was unlikely, but then, logic said a war going on for as long as there's had was statistically improbably so Starscream couldn’t make himself discount it.

Thankfully his worries were put to rest nearly as fast as they had appeared when Starscream opened Motormaster’s room and immediately located his missing youngling. 

The mech was curled under his dead leader;s berth, optics off, his entire frame shaking but not enough to truly rock the room. His field was all over the place, same as it always was when he was in the middle of an episode. 

That alone cleared him of being infected. Freon-C would’ve overrode the glitch and had Breakdown attack Starscream by now. 

Miraculously his ability hadn’t fully manifested, allowing the seeker to actually enter the room instead of being blown back out. 

“Breakdown.” He said, and tried not to frown when he got no response. “Come out.” 

No response. 

He moved carefully, crouching down at a nice and safe distance. “I will haul you out of there by your pedes if I have to.” He threatened, losing patience fast and struggling not to. 

Every minute he was away from the little group he had collected, was another minute they could be attacked. Another minute of the virus taking hold, and preventing their escape. Nevermind that Starscream had never been the most patient or understanding of mechs to begin with, and well.

He could keep his temper or try and sound friendly, but he couldn't do both. 

Red optics finally opened, Breakdown’s vents cycling so fast the humans would have called it hyperventilating.  His field smacked hard into the seekers, pain, fear, panic, and a dozen other emotions running over one another in a wild mess. 

Happy, soft emotions were not Starscream’s thing. He had never been in a position to have them, not even before the war, and the short time he had spent trying to learn them with Skyfire had been long undone by Megatron. 

Still. Yelling at a scared, glitched kid who had just lost his brother wasn’t going to get him anywhere, and so, Starscream took a moment to check himself. Vent, pull in his field--too full of negative emotions to be helpful--and slowly held out his hand.

“It’s alright.” He told him as gently as he was able. “I’m here.”

That got him properly scrutinized, a hint of awareness threading through the mech’s optics. Then a flash of recognition.

Starscream held still, hand still stretched out, vent out of Breakdown's reach. 

His patience was rewarded when the speedster suddenly _launched_ himself towards him, vents hitching, his vocalizer making a whine that sounded all too like the noise a distressed sparkling would make. 

“Easy.” Starscream murmured as the shaking jarred his own frame. He pulled Breakdown in close to him, venting slow and hearing Breakdown slowly time his own vents to Starscream’s. "It's alright. I'll get us out of this. ” The seeker promised, desperately hoping it wouldn’t be an empty one, “But you have to come with me now.”

For a moment he was worried Breakdown wasn't listening--was past listening--but relief shot through him when the Countach answered. 

“Okay.” Breakdown said shakily.

Together, and at Starscream’s prompting, they stood. 

“I need my hands free, but you can hold on to my armor.” Starscream told him, when Breakdown refused to release the elder mech’s plating. 

Thankfully the Stunticon did just that, hooking claws into Starscream’s hip joints. It pricked, and too sudden of a move could spell disaster, but it was a risk the seeker took just to get the kid out of his rooms. 

The walk back was slower, but the silence played into Starscream’s favor as it allowed them both to tune their audios to any potential threat, giving them a warning far before anything could come near. They still had to pause twice when Breakdown encountered shadows he was positive were people, but he allowed himself to be quickly persuaded forward. 

Likely, the kid drew comfort from the fact that Starscream was walking with his blaster armed and up--but that was neither here nor there.

Barely a minute away, just when Starscream had thought they’d managed to do one thing without incident, Thundercracker commed him. 

::I’ve got Autobot signatures coming up on us, Star.::

Because of course they did. 

::I’m sending you the file for Freon-C’s glyph. Find a flat fragging area and put it on the ground. Hopefully they sent someone smart for once.:: Starscream commed back, shooting the file a moment later. He ignored TC's muttered response of; 

::Are _any_ of them smart?:: 

\--and hustled Breakdown forward. Approaching the vent where he’d left all the others, Starscream tried to remember if the Autobots had anyone with a practical vehicle mode among them. A boat, or a submarine, or anything other than a useless fragging groundpounder. Someone that could be persuaded to blow up the Nemesis in a far safer manner than Starscream would need to do, if he managed to make it out to the surface. 

His memory recalled no one. 

A scuffle sounded in the ceiling above him, followed by hissed and growled voices. Wildrider, likely the target of said voices dropped out of the vent, dashing over to his brother. 

Breakdown didn’t release his hold on Starscream, not entirely, but one hand did detach, coming up to wrap around his sibling. 

“You didn’t answer my fragging coms!” Wildrider accused, after damn near taking both Breakdown and Starscream to the floor in some kind of crazed tackle-hug. 

“Sorry. Couldn’t.” Breakdown admitted, voice low and slightly ashamed, but Wildrider just hugged him hard anyway. 

“Damn it Wildrider!” Skywarp was saying, crawling out of the vent next. Thrust and Dirge followed him shortly, leaving them all vulnerable, out in the open, and just fragging asking to be infected with all the noise they were making. 

For what felt like the hundredth time in the last forty minutes alone, Starscream had to choke back his own, furious reprimand for something all his idiots would actually listen to. 

“Autobots have arrived.” Starscream cut in instead. “Their presence will need to be factored in to our escape.” Not something he was looking forward too, but part of him had wondered why it had taken the Autobots so long to show up.

The _Nemesis_ wasn’t that deep under the water. Not by Cybertronian standards. Some of those explosions had no doubt rocketed water out of the air, nevermind everything else being loud enough to have been picked up by the  _ humans _ scanning equipment let alone the scrap the Autobots toted around. 

A glance at his chronometer answered the question for him, showing that only an hour had passed since Shockwave’s project had gotten loose. 

It felt like years. 

“Which ones?” Dirge asked, directing himself and Thrust so that they stood around Starscream and the younglings. The maroon Conehead still favored his leg, but at least a short rest seemed to have done something for him mentally. 

“Unidentified.” Was the curt response. “Plans. Let’s hear them.” He demanded. 

The majority of him expected to hear something stupid, impossible, or both. 

Paint him mildly surprised when his mechs actually had something. 

“We have two options. Going up to the Inner-Planetary Space Bridge--” Skywarp started, only to be interrupted by Dirge with;

“Which we don’t know is functioning, and is also where the outbreak started.” 

“--or,” Skywarp continued, visibly annoyed, “we draw whoever's in the lift out of it and then fly up it, except no one can agree on how to draw out the infected without  _ dying.” _

Which was--actually something, Starscream realized, as he thought it over. 

“The lift.” He said immediately. “Skywarp, you’ll have to draw the infected out.”

Skywarp groaned. “I knew you were going to say that!” He said with a whine, and absolutely refused to cut it out when Starscream glared him down. 

“How am I even supposed to do that?” He added, but the plan was already forming rapidly in his trinemate’s mind.

::How much energy do you have?:: Starscream asked over a private line, knowing Skywarp was less likely to lie if it was just the two of them. 

::Enough for four teleports around the _Nemesis,_ and two to the surface and back.:: Came the answer, though it was begrudgingly given. 

Starscream worked that out in his helm--that if they didn’t do short teleports they actually had about four longer ones, or eight shorter trips if they forgoed the longer. 

Those weren’t odds he liked, but it was better than nothing. 

They'd won with less before. Even if it had been a few centuries. 

“We make our way to the lift.” Starscream said with a tone of finality, and ignored Skywarp’s groan. “Skywarp, you will go to the fourth floor, pry open the door and draw out the infected in it. Once you give the clear we will close the lift doors behind you, you will teleport back to the lift, and then take Wildrider and teleport to the beach.” 

Which would leave enough wiggle room for the darker seeker in case something went wrong. 

Beyond Skywarp’s pouts, a cover for his nervousness, no one protested. Or said anything at all, instead all of them staring at Starscream while the seeker glared back. 

After another wasted moment of silence, Starscream snapped; “Well? Let's move!” and off they all went. 

Four seekers, two kids, and not a single other spark answering over comms. 

With how fast Freon-C moved, and how unprepared everyone had been, there was a good chance they were the only survivors left.

xXx

Skywarp hadn’t argued about going back in the vents and getting to the fourth floor manually, thank Primus. 

“Go slow, be careful, do not open the door until you have cleared all the surrounding hallways.” Starscream had ordered, pressing his seriousness onto this trinemate in every possibly way he could. Skywarp had acted dismissively in response, but he knew his warnings had been taken to spark. 

Checking that section of the fourth floor diligently meant that it would took a few minutes before Skywarp could move things forward, and so Starscream was forced to wait, once again back at the lift and hoping the long silence wouldn’t break Wildrider’s jittery, over-active processor. 

Breakdown was still hanging onto him, somehow getting a hold of one of Starscream’s hands. For the moment he let him have it--they had their backs to the lift in a defensive position, but thus far the third floor had remained clear. 

Dirge and Thrust had the good sense not to say a word about the youngest Stunticons clinging. A good thing, because Starscream still had his gun in his other hand, finger on the trigger. 

And to think, he had only fired his null ray's once since this all had started...

::You mechs ready!?” Skywarp said over comms, apparently compensating for fear through sheer volume of his voice. 

As discussed, Wildrider stepped up behind Breakown, taking point down the central hall while Thrust and Dirge took the left and right branches. Starscream faced the lift doors, claws out and ready to tear their way through metal, and Breakdown slightly behind him, in the middle. They'd agreed this would be the quietest way to break through the door, so as to not attract the infected back into the lift and waste Skywarp's efforts. 

Except...

“I need to pry the door open. To do that you have to let me go.” Starscream murmured to Breakdown, feeling the kid’s own claws prick at the edges of his hand as he spoke. 

“Alright.” Breakdown said quietly, but it still took a moment for him to let go. Starscream didn't rush him.

::Ready.:: Starscream sent to Skywarp. He tapped the bond between them, sending an emotion that he refused to name, because love was not something he had in him to give. 

Not when everyone he admitted to loving died--or eventually--tried to kill him. He wasn’t going to curse Skywarp at such a critical moment by saying it, so instead he simply pretended he’d never sent anything at all. 

::Alrighty everybody here….we... _ go! _ :: Skywarp said, and Starscream began the painful, tense wait for his trinemate to call the next step in the plan. 

Seconds stretched, the silence stabbing at him like blades until the infected in the lift shaft roared, it’s voice muffled through the doors. 

There was banging, more roaring, the hum of thrusters and blasterfire--and then a low, grinding screech that shook the doors and had everyone whipping to face them, faces in various stages of confusion.

The noise repeated, a grinding of gears and a loud shriek of metal on metal, that once again made the doors rattle. 

“Is that the lift?!” Dirge asked, at the same time Wildrider bit out a curse--and then a _ ‘wap!’  _ as Skywarp teleported behind them all, field furious. 

“Who the frag called the lift!?” He spat, wings rigid. “I almost had him and now the fragging top of the lift is opening, and he's ignoring me for it! H e’s going to get out!” 

“Wasn’t us.” Starscream responded, processor racing. It Had to be someone who has access to the control room, meaning someone up there was still alive--and wasn’t fragging comming him. 

Much like a human elevator, the lift could be overridden. Unlike a human elevator, the lift extended in a telescopic like manner to reach the surface. The extended portion could be recalled for spaceflight, but since they had decided to park the _Nemesis_ underwater, it had remained extended. 

Because of this, Soundwave and the Constructicons had rigged the entire top section so that the doors to the surface--and the stronger blast hatch that cut off the extended portions access to the main part of the _Nemesis_ , could only be opened if the lift itself was in use. 

Starscream had planned to simply manually open the doors using his own SIC master code--one of the few that could trigger it to open without the lift present. Anyone else would have to do what was currently happening--which would make the destroyed lift try to move. 

“Whose is infected in the lift?” Starscream ordered. If it was a groundmech--even one as large as Megatron--it would take them a while to get out. That could buy them time, but not a lot. Probably not even enough. But it was something--a next step to take. 

Too bad the answer was--

“Astrotrain!”

\--and once again Starscream found himself punching blindly at a wall. 

“Fuck.” He said, the rough human word fitting the situation perfectly.

::TC, Astrotrain is infected and has a high chance of escaping the _Nemesis!_ :: He called immediately over comms, praying his trinemate wasn’t too busy distracting Autobots to pay attention. 

::Shoot the jackaft’s wings out from under him, ‘cause apparently some bright Autobot decided to dispatch the Aerialbots to do a flyby!:: Thundercracker bit back, very much distracted.

Fuck, fuck, _fuck!_

“Help me with the doors.” He told Dirge and Thrust, his own hands beginning to pry them apart. “Skywarp get back in there. Astrotrain can’t get out.” 

If he did…

The Aerialbots, much like the Stunticons, had no frame of reference for Freon-C. A Decepticon attacking them was just another day, and any warning given to them would be ignored because it would also be coming from a Decepticon. 

They wouldn’t understand why it wasn’t just another ‘Con attack.

Worse, they wouldn’t understand why any fight against an infected mech would be far more brutal than any they’d ever faced before. Megatron’s orders or not, the majority of Decepticon forces had quietly followed Starscream’s lead by going far easier on the newsparks than they would on anyone else. (Dinobots aside--they were too dangerous not to take seriously.) 

MTO’s or not, both the Aerialbots and the Protectobots acted more like newsparks than warbuilds, and there wasn’t a ‘Con who had encountered them who had walked away thinking the Autobots hadn’t pulled the same thing Shockwave had (likely, that’s where the afthat had stolen the codes in the first place.)

Starscream wasn’t so sure, but whatever accounted for this weirdness, also counted for the fact that they were young, they weren’t fully trained, and if they were infected, they were going to be a massive, massive risk.

To all Cybertronians as a whole. 

The lift door finally opened under their fingers, the metal screaming as it was pulled aside, seconds after Skywarp teleported out.

::Keep the kids distracted and away from the ocean.:: Starscream ordered Thundercracker, before launching himself into the lift. 

“Dirge, stay here and cover me. Thrust, guard the halls. Stunticons, back him up.” Starscream snapped the orders off rapid-fire, his own blaster finally subspaced in favor of the much stronger null rays. 

Then he was in the lift, Astrotrain well above him, and both null rays alive and howling as laserfire blasted through them. 

Astrotrain remained in root mode, making it easy to see how far the virus had already spread. A white, flaky, vine-like pattern was growing across the triple changer’s plating, covering his optics entirely and spreading to track over his spark and the wound on his arm. Chunks of his armor and most of his left hand were missing, his attention entirely on the slash of light high above them all. He was drawn to it like an earthen moth to a flame, with a singe-mindedness that spoke of a deteriorating processor. 

Despite being direct hits, not one of Starscream's shots got his attention. 

Freon-C was a virus Cybertronians had underestimated. It needed physical contact to be transmitted and unlike other viruses, it couldn't contaminate a victim from field, internet, or other contact or access. That made most overlook it as something that would be hard to get and easy to cure. Cybertronians touched certainly, but not so much as the organic species whose star system they once shared. 

In it's early stages it was considered a minor nuisance, something they would easily find a cure for. 

A very large number of mechs had died due to those assumptions. 

Physical contact didn’t just mean physical wounds. The virus gave its host a number of behaviors that made it deadly, one of which was its ability to hard line into and infect non-sentient technology. Freon-C would be just as able to take over a human shuttle as it could a Cybertronian, through the use of a hard line contact. 

Before it, no one had thought there was a virus “smart” enough to make its host do such a thing as force a hard line connection. Or upload itself onto backup drives, identify high traffic areas, and generally make everything homicidal in a way that, for all intents and purposes, looked like an outside attempt at eliminating the Cybertronian race. 

They had never discovered its source, or its cause. They had never been able to state, one way or another, if it was some sort of attack on them. 

Privately, they all knew that’s exactly what had caused it. Their neighbors, often angry at the way Cybertronan’s treated other species, specifically the biological ones, had created a horror that could would be predominantly harmless to them. 

It had taken well over a decade to fully eliminate it. (and all of the inhabitants in their star system, though Decepticon, Autobot, and Neutral all would lay blame on each other and the war for that.) 

Then Shockwave had come along; trotting into the latest command meeting happy as anyone had ever seen him, pulled out a vehicon that looked like it had more incommon with Earth’s made up alien, the “xenomorph” than its own species and told everyone he had discovered the way to eliminate the Autobots and take control of the Neutrals once in for all. 

The damn thing had been out of its cage for less than a minute before Shockwave had lost complete and utter control of it.

Astrotrain had been the first mech to have been attacked, and that showed now, with how far the virus had managed to progress.

Fast acting was the name of the game, and Freon-excelled at it. 

Skywarp appeared above Astrotrain, far too close for Starscream’s comfort. He had come in high above him, pulled out a SPAS-12, then shot down towards his target, the automatic gun firing short bursts of lasers directly towards the triple changers face. 

:Starscream ignited his thrusters and rose slowly, aiming carefully to try and take out Astrotrain’s wings and thrusters while Skywarp distracted him. 

He got two direct hits on the right wing and one lucky shot right up the fragger’s left thruster before the mech promptly had enough and charged up, at Skywarp, claws out. 

Who teleported away at the last second, nearly avoiding being creamed by the space shuttle. 

“Don’t let him get that close!” Starscream ordered when Skywarp reappeared next to him. 

He was ignored. 

“How the frag do we get him to come down!?” Skywarp asked, already back to firing his gun. Like Starscream, he automatically went for a more clinical approach, firing off shots at crucial points to try and bring the large mech down.

Too bad for them both Astrotrain had been built to withstand this exact kind of barrage.

Starscream scrambled to think, having to once again shunt two error messages off to the side to do so. He wasn't reading them, didn't want to read them. They weren't helpful, right this second. 

He ran through what weapons he had on him, cursing himself for having a number of things in his subspace that weren't remotely useful. 

“Did you subspace grenades?” Starscream asked, desperate and not bothering to cover it with his usual snarling. 

A headshake.

_ “Any  _ kind of bomb?” He asked again. Frag, he’d take a glitterbomb at this point!

“No.” Skywarp said. Then; “I’m going to teleport right below him, see if I can get him to turn around.”

Which would have been an excellent fragging idea, if the top half of the lift shaft hadn’t chosen that moment to explode. 

Water thundered in, forcing all three mechs down. In a blind panic, with Astrotrain's back coming directly at them, Skywarp grabbed Starscream, teleporting them both back to where the rest of their mechs were grouped, just in time for the water to hit them again. 

::Two of the Aerialbots are running a hit on the lift shaft!:: Thundercracker reported on the group comm, far, far too late. ::They have explosives!::

“No shit.” Wildrider growled, struggling to stand as water pummeled him. 

Frantically, Starscream tried to recall the number of teleports Skywarp had energy for, and found himself unable to, for the first time in a very, very long time.

“Sky--” He started, knowing they didn’t have long before the _Nemesis's_ AI automatically triggered its blast doors, sealing the hallway they were in while it filled with water. 

Cybertronians could survive under sea water, and they weren’t low enough to cause problems with pressure, but it was a risk for them--seekers and speedsters both--to take. 

Neither frame type was heavy, and all of their engines and internals were sensitive to small changes. Flooding and choking were very real concerns, even with sealed vents. 

“I can teleport.” Skywarp finished for him, as the blast doors slammed down. 

“Not all of us.” Starscream command immediately. "Just to the other side of the blast door." He kicked the one he was nearest for emphasis. 

Reacting faster than he would have liked, Skywarp simply said “Teleport to the beach, got it!” and then _'wap'ed_ out with Thrust  _ and  _ Wildrider. 

::You better make it with them both!:: Starscream yelled over comms, as the water rose past his chest. He couldn’t waste time being angry, not as his trinemate and not at a wasted amount of energy that he didn’t even have plans for. 

“Starscream-!” Breakdown hissed, absolutely panicked, and Starscream grabbed onto him, and then a door before the water could sweep either of them away. 

“Shut your vents.” He directed, voice furious, frustrated, and for the first time, showing a streak of his own, tense fears, “We’re going to have to swim out.”

“There’s nothing else--” Dirge tried to argue, but Starscream had jammed a claw into the vents in Breakdown’s chest, causing the mech to reactively close them with a harsh gasp. 

Shuttering his own vents shortly after, Starscream locked optics with Dirge and ducked under the water. 


	2. Get Moving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is like a literal month late. Shits been wild, hope you all are ok!
> 
> WARNINGS: All warnings still in effect from the prior chapter, and we are now adding empurata fuckery, false memories, and body horror for this one.

_It's too early for surrender_

_Too late for a prayer_

_We can't go to hell if we're already there_

Can’t Go to Hell--Sin Shake Sin

* * *

Astrotrain was likely still in the lift shaft. 

There was nothing to do about that now. 

Water swirled and rushed around them, the pressure uncomfortable against Starscream’s plating. It would equalize soon enough now that the blast doors had shuttered closed and kept the water contained to the shaft, but for the moment the seeker kept one set of claws grasped onto Breakdown’s arm while trying to keep them both from being knocked around. 

It was dark. Disorienting in the worst possible way. There should have been light somewhere above them but they were currently too far down (or perhaps, caught in too much moving water) to see it.

Breakdown was a deadweight he had to pull along, and Starscream quickly lost track of Dirge while he tried to reorientate both himself and the Stunticon.

The goal now was to get to the top of the shaft, where the opening would lead them to a small rockway that ran towards shore. The rockway wasn’t smooth enough to drive over--the groundpounders among the 'Con's had to walk it--and typically was covered by a layer of water that hid it from view. 

This was why the space bridges had always been the more popular method of moving around Earth--and also, why the Autobots had never tried storming the _Nemesis_. 

The water could be raised by a mechanism of Shockwave’s design, but as a security measure, the trigger for it and the trigger for the lift doors were entirely separate. Theoretically they could walk across with the water covering the rocks, but they’d all seen too many mechs try and get smashed against it by the waves to want to make an attempt.

The safer option was to simply jump into the ocean. 

Meaning Breakdown--and Starscream with him, would have had to go for a swim even if everything _had_ gone right.

A fact that didn’t make the seeker any better as he tried to guess where in the shaft Astrotrain might be lurking.

The water had been violent, the pressure easily able to push a mech down, and Starscream didn't want to risk moving before he knew the infected's location. 

As though Primus had heard him and decided to answer this one, specific thought, a bright speck of light burst above him, moving rapidly away from where he and Breakdown floated. 

A singular thruster, Starscream identified. Likely attached to Astrotrain.

Who was now making his escape. 

He was also putting his own mass to a great deal of use when it came to the water and light visibility and Starscream, knowing a chance when he saw one, was quick to follow.

They’d have to be careful, but infected mechs often had a one track processor. The infection ate away at most everything else, but until Astrotrain began crystallizing, the biggest threat was getting near him--and him getting out.

Was getting around Astrotrain more important than keeping him from reaching the surface? An Autobot would undoubtedly say yes.

An Autobot probably wouldn't want to examine the body either. 

In this his inner scientist and inner Decepticon morals were aligned, and so Starscream kept his focus on how to keep himself and those with him alive instead of entertaining any kind if idiotic, self sacrificing thoughts. 

First problem; the doors opening to the outside were wide enough for two mechs to stand shoulder to shoulder, which meant there should be no issues for Astrotrain to get through it.

“Should” being the operative word--Starscream didn’t even know if an _uninfected_ Astrotrain could smoothly rocket himself up and out of the doors. The guy wasn’t exactly their most graceful fighter and his flying abilities had been mocked by the air force since the last time he'd insisted he could perform aerial maneuvers. 

There was a chance he’d attempt it and come falling right back down--and they couldn’t afford to be anywhere near him if that happened. 

Starscream shot a comm stating this to both Dirge and Breakdown, the latter mech’s weight making following through with his orders a struggle. The youngest Stunticon was a racecar, built with an incredibly light frame even by Cybertronian standards. All his attempts at “helping” mostly just backfired, and despite repeated comms for him to _just stop moving_ , the mech was on the brink of a freakout. 

Which led him to Problem Two; the Stunticons just hadn’t had enough underwater training--or _any_ kind of advanced training--to get through the maneuvers the SIC wanted to do. Most mechs had a chance of losing it during their first deep water adventure, and Breakdown was more of a risk than most. 

Part of that was Starcream’s own fault, but most of it was Megatron’s. The idiot hadn't wanted to put in the time, effort or supplies into training new soldiers, and viewed them purely as a counter to the Autobot’s combiners.

Nothing more, nothing less. 

Dirge’s face appeared in the darkness, materializing next to Breakdown, his hesitation immediately clear. A barely seen gesture was made, one that telegraphed that he wanted his commander to go first.

If Starscream had the energy, he’d have rolled his optics.

Breakdown knocked into him again, the water pushing his lighter frame around like it was nothing, and annoyed, Starscream used his free hand to shove him off, towards Dirge. 

::We go up together.:: Starscream commanded over a private comm. ::Help me with Breakdown.::

With a nod of his helm (and without any arguments, thank Primus) the blue seeker maneuvered to do just that, grabbing one of Breakdown’s arms.

Together they managed to work their way to the surface, as far away from Astrotrain as Starscream would get them.

The top of the shaft was the trickiest part. They waited until the moving light had vanished, then a beat longer, the three of them holding onto each other in the darkness. Then, after a count in his head that felt both too fast and far too slow, Starscream shoved Breakdown towards Dirge as he comm'd he was going to check to see if it was clear for them to move up and out.

Breakdown didn't want to let go. Knowing Dirge wouldn't see it, Starscream squeezed his arm once, before prying the kids hands off. 

::You're almost there.:: Starscream comm'd him privately. ::You've done well, brat.::

The praise, rarely given, worked as intended and Breakdown let him go, though his field kept pressed against Starscream's. 

Who let his own retreat, knowing he needed all his senses and no distractions. 

He surfaced slowly, carefully, and found himself staring at Astrotrain as the mech balanced on the doorframe. Sunlight lit up the white streaks coating his frame, sending a dazzling array of rainbow lights to reflect back in the shaft. 

He didn't turn as Starscream surfaced, and he didn't move forward as the seeker brought his right hand out of the water.

As quietly as he could Starscream powered up a nullray and took aim. 

Luck, as always, was not on his side.

The shaft shook hard as an explosion outside rocked it, followed by the telltale screams of low flying flight engines. The shot went wide, blasting a hole next to the triplechangers head and between both Astrotrain lost his footing and fell right out, finally freeing himself.

Starscream cursed. He kept cursing as the water knocked him around, knocked them all around, enough to send both Dirge and Breakdown surfacing in a panic.

"Starscream--" Breakdown shouted, terrified, as the seekers both managed to moor themselves onto the ledge of the open door.

"We're alright." He said immediately, as Breakdown's frantic field reached, then pressed against, to his. "But we need to get out of the lift." He reached for the younger mech, helping to haul him out of the waves. "Astrotrain's escaped."

"Frag." Dirge cursed flatly, unable to summon a stronger emotion when facing down exhaustion.

Starscream could relate.

"He fell out. I didn't see which side." The SIC continued hauling himself onto the thick metal door frame after successfully getting Breakdown atop it. 

The Stunticon vented hard, plastering himself to the sides of the lift he clung too, dripping wet. His optics were glued to the beach, engine whining as he registered just how far away it was. 

It wasn’t a far swim for a Cybertronian, but as exhausted as they were it was enough to make things daunting. 

Not that they had a choice in the matter. 

Dirge hauled himself up, the three of them taking a moment to rest while both older mechs searched for a sign of Astrotrain. 

There was none. Starscream desperately hoped he had somehow taken damage and sunk to the bottom. Possibly even become disoriented, forever cursed to wander the ocean until the virus starved him out. 

Maybe a human shark could chew on the remains a little, as an added “frag you.” 

Too bad the chances of that were slim, considering all the fragging noise that was going on. 

Various flight engines snarled above in the telltale sounds of a dogfight, as multiple specs of color weaved through the air. They were clumped in two groups, parts of which kept darting over the water low enough to disturb it--and act as a guide to the surface for any confused, infected mech currently stuck in it. 

Like all flyers, Starscream and Dirge both had enhanced vision that allowed them to not only track objects at high speeds but to also see farther distances when they so choose. For a moment, Starscream’s optics refused to telescope, but with a few squints and a low curse, they finally engaged, clicking to change the delicate lenses in his optical casing and allowing him to zoom in to see if the Autobots truly had been as stupid as TC had claimed, and it was in fact the Arielbots in the air rather than say, the pit spawn twins with jetpacks or the flying rat they claimed was a Dinobot.

One seeker, one jet, and one extremely low flying Concorde were chasing Thundercracker in a loop. Coming from the opposite direction was a Bomber and some kind of Jump jet, the two of them in pursuit of Skywarp, who was managing to dodge laser fire while clearly flagging in exhaustion.

Which made the entire Autobrat flyer team present and accounted for. 

“Why couldn’t they have sent Jazz?” Starscream heard himself say, though later he’d deny ever wishing for the saboteur. “Or their sniper. Pit, even _Skyfire!_ ” 

Anyone, besides fragging younglings!

He barely got the words out when one of the mechs on Skywarp managed to peel away from him, making a successful run on the beach. Laserfire could be heard from here, blasts of sand kicking up as they tried to aim at the Stuntions --and Thrust--down below. 

“Dirge--” Starscream started to say, but the other seeker was two steps ahead when it came to defending the final surviving member of his trine. 

The blue flyer transformed with a thrust-boosted leap into the air, shooting off towards the beach to chase off whoever had been dumb enough to fire on Thrust. His engine roared in fury, pulling energy from Primus knew where.

“Save some of that for fighting Astrotrain!” Starscream shrieked after him. Frag it all, why, _why_ did it have to be the Arielbots they had sent!?

Of course, he knew why. From an outside perspective it appeared as though the Decepticons were infighting, a hobby of theirs that had plagued them since they had landed on this stupid dustball planet, and the Aerialbots were the safest to send simply because they could fly. 

Sending all of them together gave them the benefit of being able to combine if it ended up being a trap.

Pity that what was happening was something far beyond their skillset. 

“Starscream.” A downright terrified voice said behind him and Starscream turned, half concerned Astrotrain had managed to crawl back up the rockway. 

“I’m--are you--” Breakdown’s optics were wide, staring at the ocean rather than him, fears obvious, and Starscream let out a frustrated vent that shook his entire body.

“We’ll do it together.” He told the younger mech flatly, and tried to ignore the blast of sheer relief that tore through Breakdown’s field. 

He didn’t have time to swim it. If it was anyone else, even one of the other Stunticon’s--

But it wasn’t, and wishing how it was one of them instead of their most vulnerable wouldn’t make this any easier. 

So he held out his hand, let Breakdown make the decision to grab it. He kept one optic on the water, and hated how much he felt time press down upon him. 

In the split second it took Breakdown to screw up his courage to jump, a blast of water rocketed up on the other side of the rockway, and Astrotrain’s unmistakable engines screamed as the triplechanger surfaced. Clawed hands grasped at them, unseeing white optics set into a glare. 

“Vents closed!” Starscream barked and then swung the racecar right into the water, ignoring his surprised shriek. 

He dived in immediately after, grabbing onto Breakdown and pushing them both down deep. 

It would take a moment for Astrotrain to follow, and a moment was all that as highly trained as Starscream needed. 

Orienting oneself under water was difficult. Doing it in the ocean was even more annoying, and doing it with a struggling youngling was the absolute worst, but Starscream managed. He grabbed a hold of the underside of Breakdown’s arms, pushing them both to swim vertically. Holding tight with both hands, and used his thrusters to push them both forward, towards the shore. 

They got halfway there before Breakdown began to frantically struggle, and it took Starscream a moment to realize the idiot had managed to somehow open one of his vents.

Because of course he had. 

(He was lucky, he knew in the moment. Lucky that Breakdown had made this mistake now and not in the shaft, that he had done so remarkably well for someone with so little training, and that going as fast as they were was bound to cause problems. 

Desperately, Starscream hoped that luck would continue until he could get Breakdown to safety.) 

The clock had been against him all day, and yet another countdown begun as Starscream through everything he had into getting them to shore.

Error messages flashed through his hood, the entire thing glitching out with a rainbow of jerky pixels. 

The seeker grit his teeth, forcing it--and himself-- to keep working through sheer will alone.

Soon that wouldn't be enough. He knew better than anyone how far his body could be pushed and how close he was flirting with a total system shutdown.

Just as he knew how catastrophic it would be if he went offline now.

Finally the ocean’s bottom sloped upwards, and within seconds they approached the shoreline, a relief that would be short lived considering they were jumping from one fight straight into another. 

Breakdown gasped as they finally broke into air, close enough to the sandy beach that they could use the waves to help carry them in. 

The second ground fell under pede Starscream adjusted his grip, holding onto the back of Breakdown’s neck like a cat and hauling him to the shoreline. 

For once, the smallest Stunticon's light frame benefited them both.

Gasping and choking, the Countach fell to his knees then second he was released, purging water as if it were bad fuel. His engine made a horrific noise, blue hands digging into the sand as he struggled to suck in air through his vents.

“Hood.” Starscream snarled, crouching in front of him, shoving clawed fingers under critical points in the kids chest, searching for the release latch, “Unlatch. Your. Hood!” 

Breakdown did, water gushing out of his chest along as well as his mouth. He vented hard with a gasp, tremors racking his frame, and landed hard into Starscream while he took a moment to recover. 

A moment was all his superior could allow him, hoping in vain the kid wouldn't have permanent damage. 

The very second Breakdown’s vents evened out, sounding weak but not entirely destroyed, Starscream pulled away and stood up, scanning the beach Starscream scanned the beach, frantically seeking out the positions of the mechs around him--and most importantly, the location of the other Stunticons. 

He ended up spotting Thrust first.

The maroon mech was facing the ocean, three Stunticons behind him, all three screaming something Starscream couldn’t hear. 

They’d survived.

They’d all survived, just as Breakdown would, even if water still dripped out his vents. 

The seeker ran a hand down his face, nerves shot to hell--because the day wasn't over.

Not by a long shot. 

Flight engines became louder as they roared overhead, gust of wind caused by their fighting blasting sand and surf everywhere. Laserfire streaked the sky purple, and somewhere in it all Astrotrain was undoubtedly figuring out a way to get to the shore--if he hadn't done it already. 

“Come on.” Starscream told the youngling at his feet, before reaching down to half drag, help help, Breakdown towards his brothers. 

They made it two entire steps before the tone of the screaming and the laserfire changed. 

Dark helm up and searching the skies, it took Starscream a moment to understand that tone of the battle had changed due to Skywarp spotting--and firing upon--Astrotrain. 

Something Starscream only realized after being unable to locate the mech himself, and seeing a flash of purple armor halfway down the rockway when Thundercracker made his own run on him. 

It was enough to knock him back into the ocean proper, but not enough to get keep him down. 

Water blasted upwards in a giant tower as Astrotrain resurfaced using his own thrusters, nearly soaking one of Thundercracker’s pursuers as the Autobrat curved over the ocean. The jet wobbled dangerously as it dodged, then caught itself in the helpful airstream Dirge lent it. 

“Get away from the ocean!” Dirge yelled after firing his own run on the triplechanger,voice loud enough to be heard down below.

Unlike TC's, Dirge's run resulted in a direct hit, forcing Asotrain away from the rocks and deep under the water. 

Using the time that gave them, Dirge and Thundercracker tried to herd the Autobrats away from the infected mech, using everything they could at their disposal, which was apparently, both yelling and shooting.

“If Astroass is really a _zombie_ then why are you firing at me!?” Starscream heard one of the Aerialbots bellow as he zoomed past overhead, responding to something Skywarp had said. 

Not one of them was using their comms, or any of the available open comm lines, a fact that would have given Starscream a helmache if he didn't possess one already. 

No, even his own teammates just opted to scream at each other, during a full blown outbreak event, the very thought stabbing at Starscream like a dull knife. 

Anger renewed (not that it had ever truly left) Starscream dragged Breakdown back up off the ground where the kid had collapsed and resumed marching over to the Stunticons so someone with an actual functioning processor could take control over the situation at hand. 

They managed that at least without incident, Breakdown whimpering as Starscream finally dropped him. His brothers had turned as one upon spotting both waterlogged Decepticons, charging over and dogpiling on their sibling. 

The whole thing was very dramatic, involved a lot of hugs, and was immediately ignored in favor of stomping over to Thrust. 

“The Aerialbots are a problem, we can't fight off Astrotrain with them in the air.” Thrust informed him needlessly, as soon as his leader came up alongside him.

Planting his hands on his hips, Starscream ignored him in favor of trying to locate Astrotrain. His system had begun spamming him with error messages, and he was getting tired of constantly shunting them off to the side just so he could think. 

They needed a new plan, now that the infected had broken out of the Nemesis. 

_'A plan, a prayer, and a fragging miracle._ ' Starscream thought darkly. 

He was running on low fuel levels, just as everyone else had to be. 

Ramjet was dead, his loss felt heavily by this trine. Thrust was injured, keeping his weight off his damaged leg and unable to run, let alone fly. 

Breakdown was at risk for an entire myriad of things after sucking down sea water and the Stunticons as a whole were in shock after losing their (literal) head. 

Add in Skywarp, who absolutely should not be flying let alone teleporting, and that left himself, Dirge and Thundercracker to defend them all against Astrotrain--who was once again back on the rockway, coming closer and closer with no signs of slowing down. 

"Get back here Con!" One of the five, snotty Autobrat flyers said, promptly reminding Starscream that, on top of everything else, they were _also_ a problem. 

A bigger one than most would think considering they barely had two gigabytes of common sense shared between them. 

He had hoped by now that the Aerialbots would have reported in, or that another Autobot would have been dispatched when they he younger mechs had engaged in combat, but they couldn’t count on it. Not now, when seconds mattered, 

Hands on his hips, body hurting and processor threatening to mutiny, Starscream considered his options. 

Of them, only one made sense. 

The very one that Megatron himself would never have done, a fact that solidified Starscream's choice more than anything else did. 

The Decepticon closed his optics, took a heavy vent.

It was time. 

He searched through his own files, looking for the comm frequency he needed. Had always kept updated, even when that meant having to sneak newer versions off of Megatron’s datapads.

As large as Earth was, the number of Cybertronians on it was minimal. Personal frequencies were easy to get a hold of. Some mechs knew this and simply accepted that their enemies would have theirs, just as they themselves held or discovered their enemies. Others, such as Red Alert, changed his frequency so often that his own faction had trouble finding his. 

A few, such as the _Ark_ and _Nemesis’s_ frequency’s, never changed.

Starscream had stolen as many as he could when he realized he needed to take over the Decepticons. That peace would never be achieved so long as Megatron led them, that his leader's insanity had made a mockery of everything they had once stood for. 

Over the millennia, he’d learned that doing so was useless. That there was only one Autobot frequency that mattered, the only one he would ever need. 

That was the one he called now, standing on the beach and praying Astrotrain would keep himself stranded for just a moment longer, before he had to order the Stuntcons and everyone else to forget the Aerialbots in order to mount a final defense. 

Optimus Prime picked up immediately, as was his nature. 

::Starscream.:: He said it firmly, but with the single thread of calm mirth that seemed to be his calling card. ::What can I do for you?:: 

And Starscream wasn’t at all surprised his own comm frequency had been recognized.

He was the kind of mech that didn’t bother to change his. 

::The _Nemesis_ has been infected with Freon-C.:: Starscream replied. ::Astrotrain is infected and has escaped. Your Aerialbots are playing tag right over him. I suggest you come get them before I start using them as sacrifices.:: 

With that he cut the comms, unwilling to hear a reply. A reply wouldn’t help him right now. Only backup would. 

Or at the very least someone with enough sense to call off the air brats. 

He however, knew Optimus Prime. Not as much as Megatron did, considering the two leaders shared history, but certaintly enough to rival almost anyone elses.

The Prime would either come himself, or would send backup. 

Either way, the next immediate step was to take down Astrotrain, and that required his full focus. 

“Stunticons, retreat!” He ordered, making his voice loud as he could, ignoring how it shrieked with static and feedback. It was worse than usual, but there was nothing for it right then. “Decepticon Air Force, get in formation!” 

“We’re not runnin’!” Wildrider protested loudly, springing from the pile of speedsters. 

“Yes, you are.” Starscream ordered, before firing his thrusters and triggering his transformation sequence. “Go. _Now.”_

He didn’t listen. 

The warning--and orders--he’d given the Stunticons was all he could afford. Astrotrain couldn't be held off for much longer. As it was, only his weight, his infected processor, and laserfire had been keeping him at bay. 

Starscream managed to get a closer look as he did a flyby. The shining, white pieces had grown to encompass the infected's entire face, along with several large swathes of his frame. Already the edge pieces were beginning to crystallize, signaling the start of the second--and most deadly--stage of Freon-C. 

His seekers peeled off, the Command trine falling into formation. Dirge took up the rarely seen fourth position, behind Starscream, while Thrust held his blaster aloft and did what he could with it back on the beach. 

The move had clearly confused the Aerialbots, all of whom couldn’t make such smooth maneuvers in the air. Their attempts to try would have been comical if any of the ‘Cons had a moment to reflect on it, but for now Astrotrain had their attention, and they gave it to him in the form of coordinated laserfire. 

They managed to get two runs in before the Aerialbots managed to catch up. Starscream had already called the next attack, fully expecting to have to work around the younger mechs, but instead their leader hesitantly flew around him, moving with all the grace of a fat bumblebee. 

“We want to help!” He yelled, and it was the mark of a youngling that he not only asked, but used his voice instead of the public comm channel Starscream had switched his own soldiers over to. 

Luckily, asking allowed Starscream the ability to say no, which is exactly what he did, followed by an annoyed, shouted; “Then get the frag out of the way and onto the comm-line!” 

Just like the Stunticons, the Autobrats ignored him--though they at least, listened enough to obey the latter order. 

The leader--Silverbolt, Starscream recalled, yelled orders to his brothers, the lot of them clumsily falling into what Starscream could only guess was a mirror of the seekers formation, practically ontop of the Command trine. 

Astrotrain screamed below as Dirge was forced to drop down out of formation suddenly when one of the Arielbots came too close. The move brought the blue seeker far too close into into the infected mechs space, and Starscream felt his own anger reach a new level.

::Make a second formation behind us.:: Thundercracker said on the channel the Aerialbots had joined before Starscream could wheel around and fire on the younglings. ::Far enough away that if Astrotrain fires, we won’t be clumped in one group and accidentally take each other down.::

::If he fires and you or someone else is hit, consider it a death sentence. If you aren’t killed by the shot, the virus will finish the job.:: Dirge followed up, as Starscream swung them around for another pass. 

The Aerialbots didn’t have a response to that. 

Unfortunately Astrotrain had caught sight of Thrust and finally figured out he could simply swim to the shoreline. The mech took heavy fire for as long as it took him to duck under the surface, aiming for the beach and swimming towards it.

::Heads up Thrust!:: Skywarp called, but the mech didn’t retreat, instead turning and speaking harshly to the Stunticons who’d lined themselves up besides him. 

::Decepticons, _move!::_ Starscream bellowed, loud enough to strain his voicecoder. 

The Aerialbot nearest to him flinched at the noise, not used to hearing Starscream over comms, but recovered, and had enough common sense not to say anything about it as Thrust managed to get the Stunticons to back way, way up. 

Right in time for Astrotrain to rise up and come charging out of the water, his optics glowing with unnatural, white light. 

The Stunticons split up as Thrust continued jogging backwards, two going right with the other two left. All of them yelled and jeered, apparently trying to overwhelm the triplechanger with noise alone. 

The purple mech ignored it, instead zeroing in on Thrust and coming at him in a way that made Dirge’s engines snarl and Starscream push ahead, putting everything he had into reaching the infected mech before he reached the injured Conehead. 

Time wasn't on their side--and this time, neither was luck.

They weren't going to make it.

The treeline shook, a red and blue mech running through it and for a moment Starscream almost didn’t believe his optics as _Optimus Prime_ charged recklessly onto the beach and past Thrust, setting himself up for a punch that would absolutely get his aft infected.

_‘He’s going to infect every fragging mech alive.’_ Was all Starscream could think, before the convoy was on Astrotrain and slugging it out as if this was a normal fight with Megatron and not something that should be dealt with using fire and guns and _nothing else._

Having to abort his run, Starscream pulled up hard, zooming past the two mechs fighting on the beach, in and out of the waves. 

Dirge had turned off towards Thrust, Skywarp and Thundercracker each parting to cover one group of Stunticons. 

What they had not factored in--any of them, in the heat of the moment--was the Aerialbots generally poor control of themselves and their airspace.

Their leader, the Concorde, was safe and well behind them all, and so was the Jump jet, both of them unable to keep up with the high speeds of the seekers. Their own seeker did not have that problem, and neither did his siblings the generic jet and the Bomber. 

_‘Air Raid,’_ Starscream remembered belatedly, as the trio pulled up wildly aborting their own run for Astrotrain at the last possible second and setting themselves on a direct collision course with each other--and Starscream. _‘Fireflight and Skydive.’_

He took the very last second he had to commit their designations to memory, so he could give them the dressing down of a lifetime later. 

Then he was moving, knowing the four of them were going to crash down together and putting himself in the position to take the worst of the damage.

Starscream had seconds to adjust his own position, seconds to figure out the best place to be and then to get there, before the four of them managed to go down in a heap on the beach.

Sand flew in a spectacular fashion that Skywarp would later label as 'extremely impressive' the crash so loud it no doubt alerted every human authority from here to California. 

In the moment, sand ground down every inch of Starscream's plating, rocks and shells putting dozens of gouges in his back and across his wings. One of which shattered under the weight of the generic jet, crumbling alongside a good portion of his left arm when the younger bot smacked into him. 

Starscream lost time--one minute they were still sliding, vision rolling between dust, sand, sky and various parts of armor. The next he was stationary and staring at the sky, every inch of him hurting.

His HUD rebooted slowly, informing him of all the ways he’d just been a fragging idiot. Noise kicked in and out as his audios fought to come back online, abrupt silence in between staticy buzzes the only reason he knew they’d even gone offline at all. 

“Iz--zzt--oka--zzeam?” Someone asked him, and Starscream slowly, _painfully,_ rolled his head to catch a small, maroon blob jogging towards him.

“No.” He told the mech. “Frag off.” 

It took him a moment to realize the maroon blob was too far away to be heard, which meant his speaker was someone else, but by then another mech was looming over him, this one _far_ too white. 

“An--zzr---me?” The unidentified mech asked, his mouth mouthing but the words not quite matching up. 

Then something in Starscream’s processor finished its emergency reboot and the world abruptly spun up to normal, sound bursting around him. 

Alerts and errors cascaded down his HUD, pain hitting him in a harsh wave, and the only thing he cared about was that they were _all still in danger._

It hurt. Everything hurt, but he'd been hurt worse and gotten back up, and he would get back up today too. 

"Move!" He snarled at himself and everyone around him, horrified for the time he had lost. Where was Astrotrain?! Hell, where was the Prime!?

Around him, the Aerialbots were groaning, each one in various and different states of distress. None of them looked dead or permanently disfigured, which meant the entire dive had been a win in his book. 

Too bad he'd only save them to kill later--because he was going to murder every single one of them for that idiotic failure of basic flyer safety when he'd finished destroying all the infected. 

“Easy mech.” The voice said again and Starscream turned his head to find the Autobot medic was standing behind him, one hand out as though he was unsure if Starscream was going to stay online. 

A warning alert tried to go off in his HUD but crashed hard against the tangle of all the other alerts and promptly died a sad, slow death.

“Astrotrain--” Starscream said doggedly, forcing himself up and onto his pedes. The medic looked like he might try and help him, but mostly kept his stupid hands to himself, thank Primus. “is infected with Freon-C. Your Prime is now likely _also_ infected.” He didn’t have to call him an idiot, his voice did it for him with his tone alone.

“You’re sure it’s Freon-C?” The medic said, and it took way too long for Starscream to remember that his name was Ratchet. 

“Fragging positive, but since you’re all going to kill yourselves trying to save your leader, you can find out for yourself.” He snarled. 

Thrust had slowed his run, not that it had been much of one to begin with. “The Prime deactivated Astrotrain.” He reported, like the good soldier he was. “We managed to regroup everyone else on the opposite side of the beach.” 

“Well at least he did that much.” Starscream grumbled in response. “Now we just have to kill the fragging Prime!” 

Not something he wanted to do, since the guy had built and trained himself specifically to combat _Megatron._

“I’d rather you held off on that, if it’s alright with you.” Said that infuriatingly calm, amused tone behind him and Starcream spun, null rays raised and ready to fire. His legs barely held him, and he staggered, nearly careening into Ratchet, but managed to steady himself at the last minute.

“Stop!” He thundered, optics narrowed onto the Prime. The truck raised his hands, battle mask hiding half his face. His optics weren’t white yet but sometimes they were the last thing to change. “Back away!”

“Put the gun down!” Ratchet barked, but Starscream, all too aware of the younglings on the ground did no such thing. 

“It’s alright, Starscream. I’m not infected.” Prime said gently, as if that meant anything. 

“You will prove you're not infected by standing here while Thrust gets the damn brats away!” Starscream snapped in response. 

By now one of said brats, the closest to Optimus, had sat up, and Starscream without taking his optics off the Prime, switched his attention over to him. “Fireflight!” He commanded, sinking pure authority in his voice and watched as the seeker jerked to attention, “Get up, get your brothers up and get behind me. _Now!”_

Post crash processors have their perks. One of them was compliancy and Fireflight proved his by simply obeying, scuttling away from his Prime and over to his nearest sibling.

The former of which thankfully remained still and kept his hands in the air. Behind Starscream, Ratchet sighed through his vents, then carefully stepped up alongside the rather broken air commander. 

“Retract your battle mask.” He said to his leader, hands on his hips. “Infection in Freon-C is near instant, but can sometimes take up to fourteen minutes to take effect. You have twelve minutes remaining to be officially cleared.”

Which was the first logical thing an Autobot had said today.

An irrational part of Starscream wanted to hug him. 

(Apparently his processor was also having some post crash glitches.)

“Alright.” Optimus agreed, obeying without fuss, and the Decepticon SIC felt his appraisal of Ratchet rise a little bit. It went up even more when the medic apparently decided Starscream had control of the "Prime might be infected" situation and walked over to the worst-off Aerialbots, helping to get them up and behind Starscream (and now Thrust, who’d drawn his own blaster and had his sights aimed on the Autobot leader over Starscream’s shoulder.) 

The two of them would mount a poor defense against the truck if he turned, but they at least would manage to buy everyone a bit of time. 

Perhaps losing their precious fragging Prime would make everyone else take this whole thing more seriously. 

“Freon-C’s been extinct since well before the war.” Ratchet said, speaking easily as he began work on one of Aerialbots. “How could an active case get aboard the _Nemesis?”_

“Shockwave reengineered it from digging up former corpses of the infected.” Starscream informed him. “Then gave it to a mech he had under modified slave coding, thinking that would let him control it.” 

The Prime and his medic both sucked in vents at that, the former horrified and the latter disgusted. 

“And he brought it into your command center?” Ratchet said, in a voice that said it was the stupidest thing he had ever heard anyone do. 

Starscream let it go, because it fragging was. 

“He did. He was very excited.” He said darkly. “It even obeyed him for a second.” 

It had actually been about 10 seconds but who was counting? 

Besides him, of course. 

“And then it attacked everyone?” Prime guessed. 

Starscream stared hard at him. “No it got us all high grade.” He said sarcastically. 

“Whose all dead?” Ratchet asked, moving on to the next Aerialbot.

“We don’t know.” Thrust answered for him, reading the pure exhaustion and general hate in his commander’s field and apparently deciding stepping in to deal with the Autobots was the best course of action. “We only know who's infected.”

“I take it that’s everyone that’s not you lot.” Ratchet added, his tone light. It was a question that most would consider redundant. Starscream saw it for what it was--the start of a process to check that none of the surviving ‘Cons had been infected themselves. 

He would find out soon anyway if one of them was, but this gave him the possibility of a heads up in a game where seconds counted. 

Once again Starscream begrudgingly gave the Autobot medic his due, hating himself for it. 

It was too much respect for one enemy mech in one day, and he abruptly decided he was _definitely_ suffering from a post-crash scrambled processor _,_ his HUD flickering wildly, before he realized his thoughts were wandering and his gun was arm drifting down. He snapped it back up, growling at himself to stay focused. 

“Someone opened the lift doors.” Thrust said, before Starscream could confirm and if he wasn’t determined to shoot Prime where he fragging stood, Starscream would have smacked him. 

“There are other survivors down there?” The Prime said, sounding like he was about to charge headfirst into the water to check and pit, maybe that’s exactly what he was going to do. 

Would save Starscream some energy. 

“You want to go look, be my guest.” He snarled instead. 

The final Aerialbot checked over and cleared, Ratchet instructed the lot of them to go stand with their siblings. The direction they were in was well away from Astrotrain’s body as well as the Prime, Starscream was pleased to see. 

“Five minutes left.” Ratchet told them all, coming up alongside Starscream, his optics flicking over to the seeker.

“Mech, you’re weaving.” He said after scrutinizing him.

He got a wordless snarl in response. 

With a roll of his optics Ratchet smoothly turned, catching Thrust in his sights and making the maroon seeker freeze. 

“And _you_ royally fragged up that leg.” He added, hands on his hips “I’m assuming you’re not going to let me touch it?” 

“No.” Thrust told him nervously, trying to snarl like Starscream had but failing utterly at it. 

Starscream didn’t blame him, it had been a long day. 

“Fine.” Ratchet sighed. “Tell me about the effects you witnessed then. Behavior, physical changes, anything that made you think Freon-C.” 

Starscream surprised him and Prime both with a perfectly neat list of just that. “White nanite streaks, centering around spark casing, optics and wounds. White optics, with an unusual glow. Crystal growth, seeming to try and cover the entire frame. Significantly increased rage, with little to no communication skills. Decreased reasoning skills. Afflicted mechs could still open doors and perform operations or movements they did often and had mechanical memory for. Unable to feel pain, difficult to take down. Vocalizations including growling, wordless yelling, and grunting.” 

“That’s Freon-C to a T.” Ratchet said, mouth slashing in a frown.

“Nice of you to catch up.” Starscream bit back. 

Ratchet just rolled his optics. “Optimus, your time is up. Are you satisfied he’s not infected, Starscream?” 

Who failed to see why it mattered if he cared, but pit, maybe Ratchet was trusting him more than he was letting on. If the cases were switched, Starscream would. 

Freon-C was not something a mech talked lightly about. 

“I don't see how you prevented yourself from getting infected.” Starscream challenged the Prime curtly. His body was revolting hard, HUd slowly going offline but by bit as his vision turned dark around the edges. He fought it, as he had been fighting it, keeping himself upright through strength of will alone. 

“The Matrix prevents me from being infected.” Optimus responded, with a shrug. 

Of course. 

“How fragging great for you.” Starscream managed to snarl, right before he lost the fight with his legs they collapsed under him. 

Ratchet managed to catch him seconds before he hit the ground, like some kind of fairy tale prince. 

As his last act of consciousness, Starscream borrowed a rude human gesture and flipped him the bird. 

xXx

_Megatrom loomed before him, a look of disgust curling up his face. The datapad he held in his hand was dropped as though it was a toy, crushed under pede as the tyrant strode forward._

_“The data--” Starscream protested,_ but he was already backing away, knowing what was coming. 

_"I don't care for your data."_ Megatron growled, raising one arm up as he grew closer. 

"If you are so invested in them, then you can take responsibility." He added, not even looking towards the Stunticons stacked alongside Starscream. They wisely back away as Megatron advanced, his cannon turned smoothly to light up the seeker’s face. Starscream scrambled backwards, wordlessly snarling, hands raised to protect his helm. 

"They're new sparks!” He protested, knowing he was going to run out of room soon. A desperate glance behind him showed he was being backed toward a wall, but had wiggle room. 

If he could get to the door...

"They are a disappointment. Just like you." Megatron’s pede steps rand out like death tolls, and Starscream refused to look at the satisfaction his frantic movements gave his leader.

"Why don’t we give them a demonstration. Show them how I _handle_ such disappointments." Megatron purred, the sick tone making Starscream’s tank clench, awakening his combat routines. 

He tried to angle his backpeddling, masking his change in direction with scrapes and bows, apologies rolling off his lips. 

Red optics narrowed.

One grey arm jerked sideways, Megatron’s cannon flashing purple as it fired. Starscream lurched opposite it, heat screaming past his face, knowing his escape route had been spotted and cut off from him. 

"My lord, _please."_ Starscream said, because he knew when Megatron had crossed the line between anger and insanity. Knew what was coming, and that there was always a chance that begging will prevent it if only because that's what the giant git wants.

Today the begging is futile. 

The Stunticons watch in horror, cringing together closer and closer behind their leader, as Megatron gives them a close and personal demonstration as to how he handles insubordination.

All of them would have recurring night purges for years after. 

(This encounter barely registers in Starscream's own processor. It blends in with too many other such encounters after a while, fading until they all merge into one internal beast.

He ignores it until he needs it. Then he uses it. To get up the next time, to keep going, to go forward the second he thinks he has even a small chance to take Megatron down.) 

It is the first time the Stunticons have witnessed Megatron's insanity in such a personal way--but not the last. 

xXx

_::Star they're gaining on us--they're_ firing _on us!:: Skyfire yelled over comms, rolling sideways in the air. He's not as fast as Starscream is, isn't built for speed, but manages to dodge the laserfire._

_Belatedly, both flyers realize that's because the shots weren't meant for him--but for Starscream._

_::Fly up!:: Starscream yelled back, right before he's struck, wing catching fire, lighting up his engines and he can't control where he's going, can't feel anything but burning heat and intense pain and he's falling down_

_\--down--_

\--down--!

xXx

_One human month later, Starscream catches Motormaster enacting his own version of Megatron's discipline out on Breakdown._

_The seeker stepped in, preventing a hit_ to the smaller Stunticon when Motormaster refused to listen to vocal commands. 

It's clear the larger truck expects Starscream to fold as easily as he had in the throne room, and is caught entirely off guard when he ends up unbalanced on his back with a warm gun to his threat.

He doesn't understand.

_"I_ am your superior office." Starscream told him, with a look in his optics that made Motormaster freeze in place. "And _you_ are not Megatron. If I catch you doing this again, I will find a mech to replace you as Menasor’s head."

He kept the gun down against the trucks neck, pushing harder when he didn't get an answer. "Understood?"

"Yes, sir." Motormaster spat out.

He thought about rushing Starscream as the seeker let him up, how the small frame barely put up a fight against Megatron. How his punches should've connected, laid Starscream out across the floor. 

He stands and nearly falls again, his HUD screaming errors.

Both the main joints in his knees had been cut. Almost disconnected from the rest of his legs. 

He blinked in surprise. _Noticed the pointed look Starscream gave him._

_"Get to medical." The seeker growled._

_Limping slowly, Motormaster does._

xXx

Starscream onlined slowly, processor dragging, old memory purges fighting stubbornly to pull him back into sleep. 

He'd the one about Skyfire again, the one that never fails to put him on edge, giving him a bad start to the day. 

Except he's on edge anyway, for another reason entirely, one he knows he'll remember soon enough. 

When he does, he about comes off the berth he was laying on. 

“Where--!” He snapped, but then Thundercracker was next to him, field and hands pushing him back down. 

“Easy, we’re here, everyone’s here.” The blue seeker murmured and Starscream snarled at him even as he eased himself back down.

“Who _exactly_ is everyone?” He demanded, feeling like he’d been belted by Megatron’s cannon.

Possibly more than once. 

“Our trine. The Stunticons, minus Motormaster. Dirge, Thrust.” Thundercracker relayed, and slowly Starscream’s backstrusts unclench, his vents growing even. The ceiling above him is a garish, bright white, and looking around reveals a hastily put together med-center.

It’s still better than anything the _Nemesis_ has ever had, which means they have to be in one of the Autobot bases.

“Please tell me those idiots weren’t stupid enough to take us back to the _Ark_.” Starscream said. Another part of him opens a comm channel to the remaining Stunticons, issuing an order for them to check in. 

Most of his HUD was still rebooting, internal chronometer along with it. He doesn’t know how long he’d been out. How long his soldiers had been in Autobot hands, outnumbered and exhausted. Questions spin up, one after the other in an endless onslaught. 

Were they captives? 

Had Thundercracker signed a ceasefire while he was out? 

Had the infection spread?

_Where the hell were the Stunticons?_

A protective kind of fury unfurled in him, along with all his other, usual kinds and Starscream used it to fuel himself. Get him moving when everything _hurt_ and he wanted nothing more than to lie back down.

Give in.

(He can never, give in. No matter how much pain he's in.) 

The pain in his back comes to life with a vengeance as he tries to move a second time, and he has to suck a vent in to cover a flinch. 

“No.” Thundercracker says, with a short shake of his head, hand keeping his trinemate down. “We’re in a facility the humans let them set up, the Autobots say it’s ours. You haven't been out for long." Over comms he sends the codes that clarify they are physically safe and all okay, along with two more that essentially amount to “don’t know what’s happening, tread lightly” and “there are problems but they are not immediate” both glyphs invented not for Autobots, but for when Megatron was on a rampage. 

They are however, appropriate here, and they help clarify the situation immediately. 

Over comms, the Stunticons count off. Deadend, Dragstrip, a pause, and the quiet, nervous voice of Breakdown. 

Wildrider does not check in. 

“How--” Starscream started to say, but then the Autobot medic--Ratchet--is walking over, datapad in hand.

“You were right.” He said without preamble. “I have confirmed that we're dealing with Freon-C.” 

He gets a flat stare for his efforts. “Good for you.” Starscream said, sinking as much sass into the words he can physically muster. 

Over comms, he calls Wildrider’s name. 

Ratchet doesn’t take offense. Instead he simply tilted the datapad towards Starscream, sharing the screen. “I think it’s a new strain of it--an evolved version, helped along by Shockwave. I’ll need more tests to be sure.” 

::Wildrider’s playing with the dinosaurs.:: Deadend commed in, just when the first bit of panic stabbed at Starscream, and he made a mental note to chastise the brat later. Maybe choke him a little for all the years of Starscream's life he had stolen today alone. 

He covers it by snatching the datapad from Ratchet, struggling to sit up. Thundercracker helps him, the gentle pressure of his hands on Starscream’s back burning like fire. The SIC fought not to show it, keeping his face and wings perfectly blank.

Screw his malfunctioning HUD, its warnings, and any and all error messages.

He slept, so he was fine. 

If he repeated it enough, he might even convince his body that that was the truth.

Starscream thought the datapad might showcase information he won’t care about until later, but instead, shows something else entirely. 

“You didn’t bring Astrotrain’s body in here did you?!” He snapped, flipping through the data with one finger. The claw on it is broken, but that's a problem for later. 

"Absolutely not." Ratchet snapped back, instantly offended. Then; "Lay back down. I'm only telling you this because it's important, and because I’d bet every credit I own you won’t listen to anything else until we talk about it _anyway._ ” Something irritable in his voice said he thought it was plain stupid, but that he knew better. That he had clocked the seeker from a handful of battle encounters and a few traded insults and knew this was the outcome he was going to get, a thought that pissed the seeker off so much he sat taller out of sheer spite.

“How smart.” Starscream hissed at him, pain bleeding into his field despite his best efforts. “Does the Prime give you a gold star every time you point out the obvious?” 

Thundercracker tensed behind him, his hand tightening slightly on Starscream’s back and only easing when his leader’s field snapped angrily at him. 

Was taunting the medic healing him childish?

Absolutely. 

Did he care? 

Not remotely. 

To Thundercracker’s relief--and Starscream’s annoyance--Ratchet ignored him.

“Can you confirm that this is the _Nemesis’s_ inner-planetary space bridge?” He said instead, bending over slightly to flip a few pages forward. It puts him well within striking range of both seekers, and Starscream briefly thinks about lashing out with his remaining claws just to remind the idiot of who he’s dealing with.

Then his optics land on the data Ratchet was pointing too and the anger falls right out of him. 

There's energy readings, locations, glyphs and timestamps and all of them together creates a hitch in his spark he won’t admit to. 

“Yes.” He said slowly. Carefully.

Because he wanted it not to be true, wanted this to be terribly wrong, wanted nothing more to find a glaring error and to point triumphantly to it.

He cannot, because there isn’t one. 

“From this it looks like the bridge was used twice, to two separate locations, after the outbreak.” Ratchet is again looking at him to verify and the feeling the urge to scream and throw things was bubbling back up inside. 

"If this is true, it means more mechs have escaped--including, possibly, infected mechs." Ratchet added, after a moment, as though Starscream hadn't come to the same conclusion himself. 

“That's correct.” Starscream said, after he ran the numbers twice, his vents harsh. " _Frag_."

Ratchet heaved his own frustrated sigh. 

“We’ve already checked the locations of previously known bridges, but we couldn't get a visual on anyone.” He said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. 

Meaning they hadn’t yet cracked the code to figure out where the newer space bridges currently were. Were in fact, likely surprised there was more than one active space bridge at this time. 

A large centerpiece of the Earth battles centered around the Decepticons building a space bridge, and the Autobots destroying it in their attempts to take it over. Then Megatron would find a new spot that worked with the dirtball planet’s stupid shifting energies, order the next one to be built, ignore all of his command team's advice on how to hide its construction and the whole thing would begin again. 

But just because Megatron was stupid didn’t mean the rest of Decepticon High Command was. 

"They could have gone to the Combaticons base." Starscream said, banking on the fact that the Autobots had likely long guessed that they guarded a permanent space bridge. "I'll check in with them."

He moved to stand, to go do just that. Among all the other things he needed to do, up to and including making sure their location was actually secure.

Primus knew how many Autobots were already swarming around their current location. The faster they had backup, the better Starscream would feel. 

"We need to physically go to the locations of the other bridge to check to see if they were used--or infected." Ratchet interrupted before Starscream got any farther than a sad, pained lurch upwards. He didn’t comment on the movement, but blue optics tracked him anyway, burning holes into Starscream’s helm. 

“We can do that.” Thundercracker responded instantly, unsure how Starscream was going to take a glare like that and even more sure as to how Ratchet was going to react to whatever outburst his trinemate was about to make. 

Neither Starscream or Ratchet bothered to look at him. 

"I don't care who checks it.” Ratchet clarified, and it's abruptly clear he had a firm hand on his own legendary temper by the sheer amount of frustration that still managed to leak through that sentence. “I am telling you because it is a _priority_ , because it has been the subject of debate since everyone was filled in on what is happening, and because myself or another medic needs to check whatever equipment that has come into contact with an infected mech to insure the tech itself didn’t catch it.” 

Because Freon-C could take over any _kind_ of tech, and when transferring itself to non-living mechanical objects and often the signs of infection appeared inside those kinds of machines, where they were difficult to spot. 

If it had come into contact with say, a human car…

Well.

Best not to think of it right now. 

"Not you." Starscream said immediately, processor spinning at the very thought. Exhaustion pulled at him along with it, exhaustion the pain had kept away until just then. He hadn’t recharged enough, not with the wounds he had.

There wouldn’t exactly be time to catch much recharge either, not with the all the work he had to do just to ensure the Autobots wouldn’t throw his soldiers into a brig when the surviving ‘Con’s weren’t looking. 

There was no point in playing around here. They all knew if things were to get worse, Ratchet would be one of their best asses--his and any mechs with advanced medical or scientific abilities and training. 

As it stood, the Autobots held the majority when it come to those. 

The medic gave him an odd look for the statement anyway. 

"There's more, but it isn't urgent. Thundercracker can probably fill you in on the rest." He said, voice sliding into something painfully neutral, apparently choosing not to argue about who was going to check the space bridge by changing the subject. “Optimus will want to talk to you, after I’ve cleared you.”

“So clear me, medic.” Starscream snarled. He made yet another attempt to stand, this time knowing how to get around the pain that’s been holding him back. Virus or not he is still a Decepticon and he _does not_ play by Autobot rules. 

The idiot can pretend all he wants that he can order Starscream to stay here. The Decepticon SIC is not so out of it that he can’t prove someone wrong. Nor is he so weak. 

He will never be that weak. 

He also isn’t stupid. He can read Ratchet’s intent like an open book. The dumbaft isn't going to release him, but is instead going to regale him with tales of how much damage he did to himself, something Starscream has long figured out how to do. 

He’s bad off enough to know he is well and truly fragged, and he doesn’t need an enemy mech to confirm it for him.

::Star.:: Thundercracker said over a private comm channel, terrified voice freezing him instinctively. ::You need to hear him out. He found something.::

_“What.”_ Starscream said aloud, turning his head to face his trinemate and regretting it instantly when he sees panic in TC's face. 

“Ratchet, tell him.” Thundercracker said, and for a moment Starscream is incredibly insulted that his trinemate is working with an enemy against him. 

“You broke most of the struts in your lumbar spine and more than a couple in the column above it." Ratchet started, snatching the datapad back and switching it to scans of Starscream himself. 

Various parts of his body and internals are marked upon it, notions of what is broken, what is mending, and what needs further attention. 

It's all junk, nothing Starscream can't diagnose himself--until his optics catch on the notations made around what is clearly his spark. 

Then he has an abrupt and horrific realization that Ratchet is not Hook.

Is in fact, in an _entirely different category_ than Hook when it comes to pure skill. 

The Autobot CMO was infamous for many things, the uppermost being that he would actually _do his job,_ even on a hated enemy during an outbreak. 

Doing his job meant he'd _find things._

Things Starscream had been hiding. Things that would frighten his trinemates.

His claws unsheath without him meaning them too, gouging the makeshift berth he sat on. 

"Both your wings had to be welded back to your body, and frankly, the left one needs a partial rebuild. Your protoform took several deep scratches on your legs. Your process has two low grade bugs.” Ratchet’s optics blazed, his voice gaining volume as he ranted. Annoyance was slowly growing into anger, his control slipping. “You were dangerously underfueled, more so than any other mech I examined, and you have four recent injuries that you clearly did not get help for because they didn’t heal right. Compared to everyone else I'd say you haven't had a full ration in almost a month. You're a _mess_ Starscream.” Ratchet finished in a huff, before staring at Stasrcream, clearly waiting for a response.

Starscream promptly chose to give him one.

“Is that all? Here I thought you found something beyond your average war wound.” The seeker countered, panic and anger building within him once again--because Ratchet was going down the list, and Starscream's spark was next up on it. “There is an outbreak of Freon-C happening, I do not have time for this.” 

If he could get ahead of Ratchet, if he could cut him off _-!_

The medic simply kept talking, as though Starscream hadn’t spoken at all. “Furthermore I have information that as a medic, I’d advise for you to hear privately.” 

Thundercracker's field shuddered as though it'd been hit, his hand gripped Starscream’s shoulder so hard the plating creaked. Pain burst like lighting up his back and internally Starscream cursed everything and every person he could possibly think of. Primus. The Autobots, Ratchet, fragging _Shockwave!_

Starscream made his voice go cold, dangerous. “Did you hear me, medic? This is a _waste of my time.”_

He was still sitting down, but he's faster than Ratchet. 

“It’s regarding your spark.” Ratchet said, and the world drops out from under the seeker, his secret found. 

Thundercracker _absolutely_ can’t hear this. 

“Get out.” Starscream said, but his body had twisted, shoving his shoulder out from under Thundercracker’s hand. Even with red optics staring him down, it takes his trinemate a moment to realize his leader is talking to him, and not Ratchet. 

“Star--” Thundercracker said, but Starscream’s already twisted himself back around, leaning forward towards the Autobot like an Earthen cobra winding itself up to strike. 

Furiously, armor bristling in offence, he spat; “What gave you the right to examine my spark!?”

_“Star._ ” Thundercracker interrupted again. 

Starscream just pointed to the door, wings raised high and almost shaking in fury. Their trinebond had been held at arms length, a policy Starscream has held since he started taking Megatron on solo, but now he blew it open. Flooded it with his pain, his fury, his need for Thundercracker to leave. 

He keeps his fear well out of it, but gives enough of everything else to let Thundercracker know he is serious, and that he _will_ act irrationally if the git doesn’t get out this instant. 

The blue seeker pulls away from him like he's been physically struck, staring at his trineleader with wide optics.

The bond comes back with waves of confusion, frustration and pain, before it slams closed from TC's end. 

Hurt in a way Starscream knew he would have to make up for later, the blue seeker obeys him and flees. 

Autobot and Decepticon both wait until the door is closed (and it has to be physically closed instead of closing and opening itself, how awfully primitive) then a beat longer. 

They spend the time waiting for unwanted audios to get out of hearing range by glaring daggers at each other. 

"My spark is unstable. You've never seen its type, I've heard it all before.” Starscream started, the second Ratchet opened his mouth, furious that he now has to address issues within his trine on top of everything else on his plate just then. “You had _no right_ , medic. None.” 

Anger burst across his enemies face. "My name is Ratchet and I have seen your spark type before." He shot back. "And I had every right, considering yours was _burning out.”_

One finger shot out accusingly as Ratchet uncrossed his arms, jabbing at the air. His own field lashed out like a whip, filled with his own anger and exhaustion.

“It took me the better part of an hour on that beach to stabilize it enough just to move you!” 

Thundercracker’s absence means there’s no one besides Ratchet holding Starscream back from standing. Planting his hands and pushing up and over, the seeker twisted himself up and off the berth in such a way that it glitched out his optical feed. 

It comes back quickly enough and Starscream stands proudly, refusing to take this sitting down. 

“Decepticon’s do not give out headpats and praise just because someone did their job.” He hissed, and was vindicated to see Ratchet take a step back. “The very _minimum_ I expect of you is to save my life.” 

Ratchet bared his teeth in his own snarl, but ignored the bait he was offered, staying doggedly on course. “Your spark is _gold_ , Starscream. Do you understand what that means?” 

_‘Yes.’_ The seeker thought, but shoved the thought away. It didn’t matter. 

It would never matter. 

Ratchet didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Sparks take on that hue when they are removed entirely from their frames, held in suspension, and then later placed into an entirely new frame. The process is the highest, most involved form of empurata in existence, and it has a success rate of less than 5 percent.” 

And of course the stupid Autobot CMO knew what it had taken years for Starscream to discover. That was just how his life worked. 

“Do you think I will stand here and listen to you spin some far fetched fantasy about a blatant medical impossibility!?” Starscream said, gripping the edges of the berth to help keep himself upright. 

He didn’t care that Ratchet saw him do it. 

He didn’t care about much at all, right then. 

“It is a medical anomaly, not an impossibility.” The Autobot fired back. “To do it involves a level of rewiring, codebreaking, and false memory implants that even a team of the uppermost mechs in each field would struggle to do it, but struggling doesn’t mean failing. Clearly, the team that worked on you managed just fine.” He gestured the seeker’s body with his hand, before jerking it out in a ‘stop’ motion when Starscream opened his mouth to yell at him. 

Aiming a no nonsense glare that would’ve killed a lesser being, Ratchet pointedly asked; "About what point did you decide you wanted to start killing Megatron?"

“You’ve met him. How long do you think you’d last without resorting to murder?” Starscream was truly in a frenzy now, his null guns coming on with a telltale whine. His body doesn’t have enough energy to use them, and they struggle to power up all the way before abruptly shutting off, all without his consent. 

Ratchet’s optics burned holes into his own. "What do you remember after your and Skyfires expedition?" He challenged, because of fragging course Skyfire had told him. 

Skyfire had no doubt told everyone, and as much as Starscream blames him, he excuses him in the next vent. 

(Because it’s Skyfire--and Skyfire had never lied. Not to him. Not like this.) 

He knows what Ratchet is getting. Has heard the story from Skyfire himself. The shuttle had been confused, upset--and recently awakened from being trapped in ice. That kind of thing fragged up a processor real good, especially when his last memories were emotionally charged ones. 

His version of their expedition wasn't true. It was Autobot lies, Autobot propaganda. The same stupid story Ratchet clearly thought Starscream would fall for-- _even if his own memories had started to feel fake from that moment on, even if some of them vanished like smoke and others appeared, hazy and confusing--_

Ratchet was still talking. "Because he says you weren’t brought down by a storm. That you had gone viral blowing up a statue at a protest, and had been hounded by the Decepticons ever since. That the two of you were followed, and that he was gunned down.” 

"He doesn't know what he's talking about." Starscream said, frantically. He pressed his aft into he berth behind him, trying to ignite more pain in his back to keep himself calm, focused. He cannot have a panic attack here, cannot risk Ratchet catching the slightest glimpse that Starscream knows he's right. 

“Do you wanna know what I think?” Ratchet said, and Starscream found himself once again baring fangs at him. 

“Not even a little.”

“I think you have memory gaps. Ones that became more apparent as time went on. Things stopped making sense. Megatron stopped listening to you. Started calling you crazy. He worked to make you look it too, and you spent so long alternating between winning his favor back and defending your position as his second that you didn’t have time to figure out what was wrong.” 

Ratchet hadn’t stepped forward, hadn’t made a move towards him beyond a few jabs and gestures, but Starscream felt like he was being backed down anyway. Cornered, trapped, hurt, and unwilling to hear this, hear _any_ of this-!

“Then you met Skyfire, and suddenly all those little things you had ignored started to make sense. You started to see a pattern--and you’re a smart mech, Starscream. A scientist. You knew how to follow a pattern. You knew something was wrong. You knew it from the very first time you saw your own spark.” 

Ice has flooded Starscream's fuel lines--because it was the truth. It was exactly what had happened. 

And it was too much. 

Too much in the moment, too much with the outbreak baring down on them, with the weight he has to carry now that he’s the acting leader of the Decepticons. 

The world teeters dangerously, and with it, his emotions.

All his life Starscream has had the choice to react with either fear or anger. With Megatron dead, he no longer has to succumb to the former. 

Even if it is the absolute worst decision he could possibly make. 

Launching forward, he brought his hands up, claws out, and made to strike at the ambulance in front of him, who had so perfectly, so stupidly, put himself within range. 

One clawed hand lands, ripping deep gouges into white armor, right over a zig-zagging red line. 

The other is caught by Ratchet. 

There was no plan to this attack, guided as it was by an emotional outburst. 

Between that, and his blatantly weakened-- _hurt_ \--state, it was no surprise Starscream was immediately overwhelmed, spun and twisted around until his back was pressed against Ratchet’s chevron, wrists held firmly within the medic’s grasp. 

How he had avoided Starscream’s wings, the seeker hadn’t seen, the movement too quick and practiced, but he was deeply angry he hadn’t at least managed to nail the asshole in the face with one. 

He struggled anyway, fighting against, Ratchet, the pain and the truth together as one. 

Ratchet just held him, his face cheek to cheek with Starscream’s own, showcasing not just anger, or pity, but sorrow.

“It doesn’t change you who _are_ Starscream.” He said, so gently, that the seeker automatically fought harder to pull away. 

His struggling gets him nowhere, not when the medic was built to be sturdy, to hold people up. 

"Lies. You are feeding me lies to take advantage, to try and--turn me against my own faction-!” Starscream panted, his vents working overtime. Rage and strength of will only worked for so long against pain and ones physical limits. He'd been fighting a losing battle for too long, his loss making Starscream sag pathetically.

He hated it, hated how his body rebelled, hated how he was forced to lean into Ratchet instead of away from him to help keep him upright. 

“I'm telling you this because it might be the only chance I get. I'm telling you it because your younglings combiner team has been sick with worry over you and your trinemates even more so. I'm telling you because you know those kids aren't Made to Order, and you took it on yourself to make things right with them. To care for them." Ratchet continued, his field gentle, his cheek pressed so intimately against Starscream's own. 

"Get off me!” 

"I'm telling you because I've seen how Megatron treats you and he's _wrong_ Starscream."

He's waited his entire life to hear those words but not from a fragging Autobot. Especially one that’s forced him to confront what he already knew, the data he’d already collected. 

The very reason he’d decided his only course of action was to remove the hypocrite who had orchestrated Starscream’s capture, who had physically forced him into joining the Deceptocon’s when the seeker had otherwise refused. 

He had even planned on joining, hadn’t he? Had stocked up on various supplies they could use to fight against the Senate. But his expedition had been looming, the thing he had fought for for years. To not go would disappoint Skyfire, would prove every single person who had ever doubted him right. 

He was going return from it triumphant, and use that triumph to dismantle the entire fragging government--but Megatron wasn’t patient.

Had never been, patient. 

Ratchet isn't hurting him even though Starscream is absolutely doing as much damage as he can. Is in fact, making a point not to. 

“I have the data, you can extrapolate the truth for yourself.” He said.

“I don’t need it.” Starscream said, right before gathering the last bit of energy he had in him and stomping hard on Ratchet’s pede. 

Ratchet dropped him with a shout and he got to be wildly smug in his victory, flying out of the medic’s grasp and trying to turn around. 

Both legs disobey him, his HUD back on and flashing all it’s stupid warnings.

Sticking both his arms out to balance does nothing and instead of gracefully facing his opponent, Starscream goes down hard, crashing directly into the berth. 

The pain of it blacks out his optics, entire frame shuddering. The burning feeling mounts in his back until it is all consuming, and he bows his back to try and escape it. 

Someone is screaming so hard their vocalizer has blown out--and ah. 

Right.

That's him doing that then. 

Then Ratchet’s voice is in his audio, hands on his frame as his optics reboot. “Easy, you fragging _git,_ easy.” Ratchet said as something pricks at his lines, a cool fire sweeping through him to take the pain away. 

Whatever Ratchet is doing works, enough that within seconds Starscream is laying on the ground shaking, vents cycling air so frantically it makes a racket. 

“You’re alright, I've got you.” Ratchet said, and in that moment Starscream hates him so much it comes out in a choked sob. 

“Fuck you.” He snarled through a glitching vocalizer, needing the bluntness of the human word. “Fuck you, fuck you, _fuck you.”_

“Not tonight.” Ratchet responded, as he opened the seeker’s internals, plugging in and entering his medical override codes. “Maybe when you’re better.” 

It takes everything he possibly has in him, but Starscream manages to flip him off for the second time. 


End file.
